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% 



UNDER THE BOLSHEVIK REIGN 
OF TERROR 



UNDER THE 
BOLSHEVIK REIGN 
OF TERROR 

BY 

RHODA POWER 




NEW YORK 

McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY, LTD. 






First Published ifi igjg 


By Transfer 
0. C. Public Library 
APR 1 0 1935 






b & t DEC 2 4 1919 


"SlD®Q©roo , f0 mmsta* 

o 

\ 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROPERTY 
TRANSFERRED from bublic library 


TO 

J. C. H. 

(ECCLESHALL) 

IN WHOSE HOUSE. THERE IS PEACE 


I desire to tender my thanks to the Editors of “The 
Englishwoman” and “The Fortnightly Review,” who 
have kindly allowed me to include in this book extracts 
from articles which have already, appeared in print. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV- 

ON-DON 1 

II. A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSE¬ 
HOLD - - - - 13 

III. THE REVOLUTION - - 40 

IV. A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE - 68 

V. A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY - 83 

VI. AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY - - 105 

VII. CIVIL WAR - - - 124 

VIII. UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION - 145 

IX. ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS - - 164 

X. UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE - 187 

XI. THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPAR¬ 
TURE - - - - 221 

XII. FROM ROSTOV TO THE MURMAN 

COAST - 245 

xni. REFUGEES IN MURMANSK - 265 


The names of private people in this booh are fictitious 



When a taunt 

Was taken up by scoffers in their pride, 

Baying, ‘' Behold the harvest that we reap 
From popular government and equality,” 

I clearly saw that neither these nor aught 
Of wild belief engrafted on their names 
By false philosophy, had caused the woe, 

But a terrific reservoir of guilt 

And ignorance filled up from age to age, 

That could no longer hold its loathsome charge, 

But burst and spread in deluge through the land. 

—Wordsworth: “ The Prelude. 



UNDER COSSACK AND 
BOLSHEVIK 


CHAPTER I 

FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV-ON-DON 

HO is for Russia ? ” 



The sergeant in charge of the 


room walked up and down collecting 
passports. The little steamship “ Jupiter ” 
was to sail that night for Bergen, and 
the passengers, stamping their feet to 
warm them, waited in a building on the 
Norwegian wharf at Newcastle and won¬ 
dered when all the formalities would finish. 
The air was chilly in spite of the big 
coal fire in one corner of the room, and 
the January mist penetrated the closed 


2 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
windows so that everything was seen 
through a thin grey haze. To go to 
Russia had, for years, been one of my 
dreams, and now the very atmosphere of 
the room, the strange, heterogeneous col¬ 
lection of passengers who looked so un¬ 
substantial in the mist, the vague sil¬ 
houette of the ship growing out of the 
darkness and only distinguishable if one 
pressed against the window pane, had 
all the quality of a dream. The cross- 
examination in a private office, when 
military authorities asked questions almost 
Chestertonian in their unexpectedness, was 
also like part of a dream. “ Did you ever 
have a brother who lived at Folkestone ? 55 
said the clerk, pointing a forefinger at me. 
Sunday, in the “ Man who was Thursday, 5 ’ 
would have answered by whispering 
mysteriously, “ The word I fancy should 
be pink , 55 or “ Fly, the truth is known 
about your trouser-stretchers , 55 and in a 


FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV-ON-DON 8 
dream the reply would have been quite 
satisfactory, so I laughed when I thought 
of it, and the clerk laughed too, almost 
as though I had given voice to my idea, 
and the cross-examination proceeded in 
such a friendly way that I was allowed 
to embark within five minutes. 

My berth-companion on the “Jupiter” 
was solid enough in appearance, but she 
was hardly the sort of person one would 
expect to be going to Russia while a 
European War was in progress, and so 
she too was one of the dream-people. 
She made friends with me at once. 
“ Goin’ out to Russia, are you ? Well, 
now, fancy that, so am I. Coin’ to be 
married, I s’pose, aren’t you ? To think 
of ’im letting you go all that way by 
yourself. Downright wicked I call it.” 
Then, in a wheedling tone, “ What’s ’e 
like, dearie; blue eyes ? ” I hastily 
disclaimed the fictitious fiance, and she 


4 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
seemed so disappointed when I said that 
I was going out to teach English and to 
learn Russian, that I felt I had not quite 
played the game, and did my best to 
entertain her till it was time to go to 
bed. She amazed me by undressing com¬ 
pletely and putting on a flimsy beribboned 
nightgown. “ The North Sea is in the 
danger zone,” I said. “ Now, don’t you 
worry about submarines—we’ve no call 
to be afraid. The Germans have shares in 
all these big companies —that’s a better 
safeguard than a life-belt.” And with this 
comforting reflection she fell asleep. 

We reached Bergen when the sun was 
rising and the snow-covered hills were 
pink-tipped, and we waited for an hour 
in a cold wooden shed while the customs 
officials examined the luggage. Mrs. 
Maine, my travelling companion, shivered. 
“ What we need is a glass of bubbly 
water,” she said; 44 that’d buck us up. 


FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV-ON-DON 5 
But, come on, dearie, we must find Cooks’ 
man and fix up about our places in the 
train.” 

Cooks’ man, a merry little fellow with 
hair like hoar frost and twinkling blue 
eyes, had seen us and came hurrying 
towards the ticket office. He made all 
our arrangements, talking unceasingly in 
broken English, while Mrs. Maine looked 
at him. She had a trick of holding her 
muff up to her chin and peering over 
it with an expression of intense surprise. 
She did this now, and reminded me of some 
one playing at “ Peep-bo ” with a baby. 
The man suggested that we should go 
to the hotel and rest, but Mrs. Maine 
shook her head. “ We’ll stick to him 
through thick and thin,” she said to me, 
“ in case anything goes wrong. Come on, 
dearie, we’ll do as they do in the ’alls, 
‘follow the man from Cooks’.’” And it 
took me quite ten minutes to persuade her 


6 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
that it would b© more interesting to 
explore Bergen than to remain at the 
ticket office from ten till four. 

The time passed quickly, and when we 
had wandered through the town and 
climbed the hill so as to see the harbour 
from a height, we dined at the hotel and 
returned to the station. The train had 
arrived, and we took our places in the 
little half-coupe, where there was scarcely 
room to move, and at dusk w r e set out 
for Christiania. It was very cold, and 
all the water in the pipes froze, and 
every now and then the train, which 
could only crawl along slowly, stopped 
altogether. Snow fell. Sometimes soft, 
feathery forms floated quietly and mono¬ 
tonously to the ground, sometimes a 
rushing tornado of flakes spun madly 
round and round like the ghosts of fallen 
leaves whirling in a wild dance with the 
wind. When the storm had cleared I 


FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV-ON-DON 7 
stood outside on the platform between 
the carriages, and we glided in and out 
of little towns, where the houses were 
painted green, red, and blue, and through 
forests of dark pine-trees with branches 
snow-laden and heavy. I watched the 
silver birches, slender and graceful, sway 
as we passed. They stood together, slim 
figures glimmering in the sun, like dainty 
brocade-clad ladies who curtsied, bending 
their powdered heads. 

The Norwegians were friendly and kind 
to us, but the Swedish seemed hostile. 
“ Do you speak English ? ” we asked. 
They made no answer. “ Parlez-vous 
Fran 9 ais alors ? ” Again we received 
no reply. In desperation we tried 
“ Sprechen sie Deutsch ? ” and “Natiirlich” 
they said crossly. The officials at the 
frontier towm were brusque. u Acid 
tablets, that’s what I call them,” said 
Mrs. Maine, as they rumpled the contents 


8 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
of her trunk. 4 4 If you write a book about 
this, you must put in all these details.” 
She suddenly gurgled with laughter as 
a fat customs official with gold braid 
round his hat extracted half a bottle of 
whisky from her suit-case. 44 ’Ere, young 
man, that’s private, that is. My l did 
you ever see such a ticket ? Dot ’im in 
your book, dearie.” 

It was a little difficult to obtain food 
on the way, and although we were sup¬ 
plied with bread-tickets it was not always 
possible to buy the bread. We got all 
our meals at small wayside stations, where 
we sat at dirty tables and took whatever 
happened to be before us. On these 
occasions there was a regular stampede 
across the snow, and people had no 
regard whatever for one another. Mrs. 
Maine pushed every one, out of her way, 
keeping a firm hold on my wrist all the 
while. 44 ’Ere, you,” she said, tapping 


FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV-ON-DON 9 
with her muff the people who incommoded 
her, “ a little less elbow and a little more 
manners, if you please.” It was only 
through her help that I managed to get 
a satisfactory amount to eat. 

On the fourth day we reached Hapa- 
randa, the last town in Sweden, three 
hours late, and after a lengthy* customs 
examination registered the luggage and 
drove in a sleigh to Tornea. The river 
was frozen so that we could drive over 
the route which is crossed by steamer in 
the summer. It was bitterly cold and 
the breath froze in one’s nostrils. Our 
driver kept turning to look at us. He 
wore a thick, padded coat, a sheepskin 
hat, and boots made of some kind of 
skin. We passed a weary time at Tornea. 
After our luggage had been opened and 
carefully examined we were shut for five 
hours in a detention shed until the train 
arrived. One of the third-class passengers, 



10 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
a Russian sailor on his way home, fainted 
from exhaustion, and we subsequently 
learnt that he had had no food for two 
da} r s, and had walked across the frozen 
river in boots which had let in the snow 
till his feet were blue and stiff with cold. 
We warmed him at the stove, and gave 
him hot coffee, and he prayed God to 
bless us and bring us good fortune. 

Our journey to Petrograd was unevent¬ 
ful and slow. We arrived at four o’clock 
in the morning. The temperature was 
icy and there were no porters or sleighs, 
so that many of the passengers had to 
spend the night in the waiting-rooms. 
Fortunately I was met, and motored to 
an hotel, where I slept far into the next 
morning. 

Petrograd, with its white, snow-covered 
streets, golden-domed churches, and gay 
little sleighs, was a veritable Fairyland, 
and I spent four days wandering round 


FROM NEWCASTLE TO ROSTOV-ON-DON 11 
the town; sometimes going into the 
churches to see the pictures and mosaics, 
sometimes listening to the singing, which 
was more beautiful than any sacred music 
I had ever heard. I watched the long¬ 
haired priests in their vestments, bowing 
at the altar, swinging their censers to and 
fro, and occasionally stopping the service 
as they took little combs from their 
pockets to arrange their tangled locks. 
I passed through street after street, sitting 
in a sleigh behind a broad-backed coach¬ 
man, who was dressed in a padded blue 
coat and a fur cap. I listened to the 
deep-toned bells of St. Isaac’s, and 
saw the Winter Palace gleaming in its 
setting of snow. 

It was with regret that I tore myself 
away from this wonderful city. But 
tickets for the south-going trains were 
sometimes difficult to get, because many 
people were leaving the capital owing 


12 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
to the food problem, and they booked 
their places in advance, so that I had to 
seize whatever opportunity presented 
itself. It took three days to reach 
Rostov, and I spent most of the tim e 
looking out of the window at the wide 
spaces and tracks of forest-land, and 
wondering whether the Sabaroffs, with 
whom I was going to live, would prove 
agreeable companions. There were only 
three people in the carriage beside myself, 
but it was airless, as the double glass 
windows would not open, and I was glad 
when the train pulled up, though the 
station was half under water and the 
waiting-room, crowded with dirty peasants, 
smelt of stale sausage. 


CHAPTER II 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 

R OSTOV - ON - THE-DON cannot be 
l. described as a typical Russian 
town, though possibly it is quite a good 
example of a South Russian trading 
centre. When I had been there for some 
weeks I realized that there were more 
Greeks, Armenians, and Southern Jews 
than Russians and Cossacks, and that 
society was divided into numberless 
cliques. The Jews, many of whom were 
said to have become rich since the out¬ 
break of the European War, were admitted 
into society, but were considered “ out¬ 
siders,” and invited to few of the big 
social functions. This, however, hardly 
affected them, as they were sufficiently 




14 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
numerous to organize their own enter¬ 
tainments. For an Englishwoman, ac¬ 
customed to freedom of opinion and 
toleration regarding religious sects, the 
attitude of the Russian bourgeoisie and 
peasantry towards the Jews was amazing. 
The peasants quite frankly hated them 
and made no bones about it. If one 
mentioned a Jew by name they used to 
spit on the ground. The better educated 
classes also despised them, and though 
they invited the good families to dinner 
on rare occasions, they seldom had their 
own friends to meet them. “ Who played 
tennis with you to-day ? ” I once asked 
my pupil. “ Oh, Peter Petrovitch, Marie 
Vassilovna, and a Jew.” He was not 
worth mentioning by name. The Greeks 
for the most part had lived in the town 
for many years and had become quite 
Russianized, some of them being unable 
to speak their mother tongue. Others, 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 15 
however, still preserved Greek customs, 
had their own native servants, and ate 
the usual Greek dishes when they could 
procure the proper ingredients. One 
family, consisting of nine girls, the eldest 
of whom was twenty-six and the youngest 
six, were brought up with the old Greek 
idea of the dependence of women, and 
could never leave the house without first 
obtaining permission from their father, 
who required to know exactly where they 
were going and when they would return. 
If both father and mother were out they 
were obliged to remain at home until 
their parents returned. 

The elite of Rostov society lived in big 
houses off the main street, which w^as 
flanked on either side by fashionable 
shops and led to the public garden. 
Their rooms always struck me as being 
intensely uncomfortable and formal in 
appearance. One missed the friendly 


16 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
hearth of the English houses. The petch 
(stove), tiled and forming a portion of the 
wall, gave plenty of heat but was cheer¬ 
less. The atmosphere, too, was un¬ 
pleasantly hot, as in the winter the 
double-paned windows were tightly closed 
and every crack sealed with paper so 
that the cold air, could not penetrate. 
Each room had its icon placed high 
up in the corner near the ceiling, and 
whenever an orthodox family migrated 
to a new house the priest was invited 
to bless the rooms, after which there was 
much feasting. The wedding icon, given 
to the owners of the house on their mar¬ 
riage, hung in their bedroom, and was 
usually exquisitely decorated with pearls. 
The richer the family the more beautiful 
was the icon. A little lamp burnt 

before it night and day, and was only 
extinguished for the purpose of replacing 
the wick. I was a foreigner, so there was 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 17 
no icon in my room, but the old nurse 
took my little Medici print of St. Francis 
preaching to the birds and hung it at 
the head of my bed. She called it 
“ the stranger’s religion ” and crossed 
herself whenever she dusted it. I loved 
this sweet, withered old woman, who 
suffered so much and so patiently. She 
was almost blind and crippled with 
rheumatism, due, she told me, to having 
been obliged to sleep on the floor outside 
a nervous mistress’s door. She wondered 
at my indignation and explained carefully, 
“ But she was my mistress, barishnia, and 
unless I was there she was afraid to 
sleep.” She took a strange fancy to me 
and mothered me when I was ill, but 
sometimes her ministrations were pre¬ 
judicial to my recovery. I shall never 
forget the day I was suffering from sick¬ 
ness and she brought me a flabby pancake 
followed by a plate of thin soup, floating 


18 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
in which was a fish’s head with bulging 
white eyes. When the family was at 
the theatre she used to wander into my 
room and talk by the hour, telling me 
of her life in the Cossack village, and how, 
when she was fifteen, her mother-in-law 
had proved such a hard task-mistress 
that she had tried to drown herself in 
the well. She always wanted to know r 
what we had to eat, and when I told 
her she threw up her hands in horror, 
exclaiming, “ Ei, ei! What would become 
of me there ? You must not go back, 
my little one.” She was amazed when I 
told her how much I disliked dining at 
three in the afternoon after lunching at 
one. Her pride in living in a place like 
Rostov, where there were so many large 
houses, was rather pathetic. She called 
it “ our town.” 

The appearance of “ our town ” was 
curious, and gave one the same impressions 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 10 
as a picture by a cubist. It seemed to 
be all higgledy-piggledy, a jumble of 
vivid colours, domes, and oddly shaped 
houses. Next to a large and ornate 
mansion with statues at the door and 
twisted iron gates there was a tiny wooden 
hut thatched with straw and built half 
underground, so that the windows were on 
a level with the road. The first was 
the property of some wealthy merchant 
who had his garage and stables, and 
possibly a garden, while the quaint little 
hut at its side belonged to a poor workman 
who had collected a few sticks of furniture 
for himself and his family, and refused 
to be bought up. The interior of these 
cottages was unspeakably dirty, and the 
smell of humanity and stale food over¬ 
whelming. Children, poultry, and dogs 
crawled about the floor indiscriminately, 
and there was always very little light. 
Coloured oleographs of the Tsar and other 


20 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


prints were nailed to the walls, and every 
cottage had its holy pictures and icon. 
The bed, when there was one, seemed to 
be an object of care, and the blanket 
was almost invariably neatly folded and 
the pillow hidden by a cover richly 
embroidered in red and blue cross-stitch. 
The samovar had a place of state in the 
corner, and there was generally a big 
flat stove on which the chilly old folk 
used to sleep. 

The shops, too, had much the same 
effect as the houses. Big, fashionable 
bazaars stood next to tiny stores built a 
little way back from the pavement and 
floored with stones between which earth 
and grass peeped. These little insig¬ 
nificant places were often owned by quite 
rich Greek fruiterers, and sometimes one 
could buy from them what the larger 
and more fashionable shops could not 
supply. Outside each shop there was a 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 21 
coloured wooden board on which various 
goods for sale within were painted, 
execrably out of drawing and crude, but 
useful to the bewildered foreigner, who 
could lead the salesman outside and point 
to the object she desired, uttering without 
more ado the simple word “ dyti ” (give). 
Shopping in Russia could be very com¬ 
plicated when one did not know the 
language. Words with totally different 
meanings, but very much alike in form, 
were always leading one astray. For 
instance, I strode confidently into a shop 
and asked the astonished man for a 
“ little thief ” (voreshka). I explained 
haltingly that I required it for parcels, 
and it was only after I had exercised 
my pantomimic powers to the utmost 
that he guffawed loudly, and gave me a 
piece of string (verovka). There were 
three markets in Rostov, where one could 
buy anything from wooden toys to house- 


22 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
linen, and it was amusing to do one’s 
shopping there in the early morning when 
the poor people were driving hard bar¬ 
gains. The peasants, wrapped in thick 
coats or leather shoobas lined with sheep¬ 
skin, stood behind their booths under 
wooden shelters, stamping their feet on 
boards thrown down to protect them from 
the snow, and chattering like rooks. 
“ Come, barishnia. These apples are the 
best, and cheap, but the cheapest in 
Russia.” “ No, no, little aunt, these 
are all spotted with blight.” “ Tfuh ! ” 
(spitting). “The bourguika does not know 
what is good ”—and her neighbour, 

“ Come to me, take my apples, dear.” 
“ Now, look here, those are polished on 
this side and bruised at the back.” 
“ Bruised ! Boje moy! the little dove does 
not know the colour of an apple.” And 
so on until one was eventually obliged 
to take a very inferior article at an 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 28 
exorbitant price, for which one had 
bargained for about ten minutes. The 
second-hand clothing store was patronized 
more than other booths, and I am quite 
sure that if some rich mistress were to 
have risen early and gone to the market 
she would have found many a silk petti¬ 
coat and crepe de Chine blouse which she 
had long missed from her cupboard, for 
the servants were badly paid and took 
advantage of unlocked drawers. 

I was very sorry for the servants: they 
led such uncomfortable lives; and though 
they nearly all seemed to be thieves and 
liars I could not help liking them. They 
spoke in such musical sing-song voices, 
used such quaint phraseology, and were 
so easily amused and haphazard, and 
had such an unshakable belief in the 
gadalka (fortune-teller), whom they con¬ 
sulted whenever they were in love or had 
lost something. They were not particu- 


24 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
larly well treated, unless they happened 
to be living with cultured people, and 
many of them had no bedrooms, but slept 
rolled up in shawls on the kitchen table 
or sometimes on the floor. They were 
not supplied with bedding, as it was 
generally supposed they would sell any¬ 
thing of which they had the use. They 
rarely undressed, and slept in their every¬ 
day clothes, and sometimes in the long 
felt top boots which they wore in the 

streets. Many of them went about their 
tasks barefooted because shoes were so 
expensive, and they did not earn enough 
to buy new ones. They were rarely 

clean and always untidy. Uniform seemed 
only to be worn by parlourmaids, who 

were seen by visitors and so had to look 
neat. The cook was called by her fellow- 
servants “ Little Mother,” the laundress 
“ Aunt,” and the old nurse, 44 Grand¬ 
mother ” ; and they cuffed the young 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 25 
housemaids and screamed at them till 
I sometimes thought their lives must be 
hardly worth living. There was a general 
understanding among them that the 
younger ones should help their elders to 
cheat the master and mistress, and should 
say nothing when the laundress used the 
household soap for washing her friends’ 
linen (at a fixed price), provided she 
occasionally ironed a blouse or two for 
the girls. The cook thought nothing of 
telling her mistress that food was double 
its actual price, and pocketing the extra 
money given her to pay the market 
women. She kept the younger servants’ 
tongues quiet by stealing sugar for them 
and sometimes baking them cakes. On 
the whole, they were fed pretty well, 
though it was difficult to procure a 
variety. The parlourmaids came off best, 
and sometimes if one opened the dining¬ 
room door suddenly one would find them 


20 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
outside with their mouths full, or dipping 
their fingers into dishes, to taste what 
was going to be set before the family. 

Hardly a servant in the town could 
read or write, and they spent their spare 
time playing cards or sewing a little, but 
often sitting with their hands in their laps 
doing nothing at all. We had a charming 
little housemaid, twenty-one years of age, 
with a rosy, laughing face, and roguish 
brown eyes. She was rather more intel¬ 
ligent than the others, and had bought 
a child’s copy-book, and, after dinner, 
used to sit in the greenhouse, her tongue 
between her teeth, her fist crumpled like 
a baby’s, laboriously copying up-strokes 
and down-strokes. I doubt, however, 
if she knew what the hieroglyphics re¬ 
presented. She was married and had a 
child of four, but as her husband was at 
the Front she had drifted into domestic 
service, leaving the child with her mother- 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 27 
in-law. Her name was Aniuta, and 
because^ she was married she imagined that 
she was wiser than the other servants, 
and could do things better. She called 
them scornfully “ those girls,” and she 
was the youngest of all. “ I, I have 
been married five years. I know the 
world. Those girls, how can one expect 
them to work well; they know nothing. 
Pah! they are more ignorant than the 
dogs in the yard.” And with a toss of 
her brown head and a swirl of her red 
cotton skirt she would return to her 
copy-book. She left us after a few 
weeks with a little cardboard box in 
one hand and her wages in the other. 
Her husband had come back from the 
Front, followed her from her native village 
to Rostov, presented her with a railway 
ticket, and ordered her to return with 
him. Aniuta was overwhelmed. “ But 
think, barishnia, I know him not. I 


28 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
know not his ways, his habits. I am 
not used to him, and now has he not a 
beard ? But it is impossible.” And she 
refused to go. I heard afterwards that 
he took her by the ear and asked her 
how many “ cavaliers ” she had at Rostov, 
and she, hunching her shoulder because 
of the pain, said she would rather flirt 
with ten cavaliers than live with one 
animal. Nevertheless, she went away 
with the animal, and “ those girls ” 

laughed at her from the kitchen window. 

The men-servants were picturesque 
creatures and delightful liars. The 
explanations they offered for the dis¬ 
appearance of articles which they had 
undoubtedly stolen caused me to have 
the liveliest respect for their ingenuity. 
The storoj, who guarded the house at 
night, and the dvornik, who swept out 
the yard and did odd jobs, were great 
friends. They had a code of knocks on 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 29 
the wall by which they used to wake 
one another, and when the rest of the 
household slept Dmetri, the dvornik, 
used to creep to the garden gate with 
anything he happened to have pilfered, 
and pass it through the bars to the storoj, 
who sold it to some of his cronies waiting 
in the road, and shared the booty with 
Dmetri. Of course they drank, not 
vodka, for it was difficult to get, but 
a sort of alcoholic furniture polish which 
had the same effect. This drinking was 
not exactly regular, but systematic; that 
is to say, they would be perfectly sober 
for months on end, and then suddenly 
have a bout for three weeks, after which 
they would wake up one morning with 
splitting headaches and find they had 
no money left. They took it very philo¬ 
sophically. What were the wages for ? 
On these occasions they were generally 
maudlin and apologetic. “ You’ll forgive 


30 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
me, barinia, won’t you ? n “ Certainly 
I will forgive you, but you must not 
do it again.” “ What, does the barinia 
mean I mustn’t go on till the end of 
the month ? ” 

The storoj had an understanding with 
the coachman that at midnight, if his 
employers were in bed, he should be let 
into the stables where a rug would be 
ready for him and where he could sleep 
till breakfast-time, when he would once 
more return to the front door, and sit 
with the virtuous air of one who had 
been there all night, ready to greet the 
master when he left the house. I dis¬ 
covered his shortcomings quite by acci¬ 
dent on a winter evening, when he ought 
to have been at the door to let me in 
after a party, and I spent the best part 
of an hour shivering in the snow and 
trying to make him hear. He met me 
with a most disarming smile, expressed 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 81 
a hope that I had spent a pleasant 
evening, and held out his hand for the 
expected tip. The family slept peace¬ 
fully every night thinking they were well 
guarded, so I suppose the old villain 
unintentionally served his purpose. 

Natasha, my pupil, treated them all 
with the greatest contempt. “ They are 
real pigs,” she used to say in her broken 
English ; “ what good to be polite with 
them when "they steal all time and are 
dirty?” I suggested that if they were 
treated with greater respect they would 
improve, but she laughed and said they 
were used to it. Certainly she had no 
consideration for them, and they waited 
upon her hand and foot, rushing to answer 
her imperious peal at the bell, and arriving 
out of breath for fear of bringing upon 
their heads a tirade against slowness. 
Nearly all the young girls of the nouveau 
riche bourgeois class so predominant in 


32 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Rostov had the same attitude towards the 
servants. They were paid to work, and 
so they were given very little peace. 
They had to do the barishnia’s hair, 
lace her boots, dress her, and even bathe 
her. This bathing was almost like a 

sacred rite, and was undertaken with the 
greatest solemnity. As there was no 

central boiler, the water had to be 

specially heated, and this took a long 
time. Wood was scarce, and so the bath 
was only used once a week. At first 
I found this a great deprivation, but 
afterwards, when I had secured a daily 
substitute in the shape of huge cans of 
boiling water from the kitchen (thereby 
earning for myself the title of “Mees 

Gariachia Vada ”—'“ Miss Hot Water ”), I was 
rather relieved, as bath-night always 
seemed the occasion of a general upset. 
The servants, in white overalls rolled 
up at the elbow, and white handkerchiefs 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 33 
round their heads, their faces scarlet with 
the exertion of scrubbing, were usually 
in tears. An irate damsel in the bath 
was shouting orders at the top of her 
voice, water was splashed all over the 
floor, and the passage was full of smoke 
from the wood fire. The housemaid 
was very much troubled when I refused 
to admit her while I was having a bath. 
Her idea was^ that I could not possibly 
reach my back. As I never once allowed 
her to come in she is now firmly convinced 
that the English are a very dirty race. 
The master of the house was bathed by 
a white-coated valet, and on those days 
he arrived at the tea-table actually 
waxed and perfumed. I never could 
get accustomed to this, nor to meeting 
him at breakfast in his green plush 
dressing-gown and felt slippers. 

My pupil’s education was typical of 
that given to the Russian bourgeoise 
3 


84 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


who was not sent away from home. Many 
girls went to “ institutes” or boarding 
schools, where they had much less liberty 
than the day-girls at the “ gymnasiums ” 
(high schools). They wore, as a rule, old- 
fashioned and ugly uniforms with broad 

collars and aprons. They were seldom 
allowed outside the school grounds, and 
had to conform to all sorts of irksome 
rules regarding the way they did their 
hair, etc. Natasha attended the gym¬ 

nasium daily and passed her public 
examination there. She had both a 
German and an English governess, and a 
Frenoh lady came to the house once a day 
to talk French with her, so that she was 
thoroughly conversant with all three 

languages. Visiting masters and mis¬ 

tresses gave her extra coaching in the 
school subjects in which she was not 
proficient. A ballerina taught her dancing, 
and she had music lessons from a master 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 35 
who lived in the town. She received 
all her teachers in her bedroom, as the 
dining-room was sacred to meals and the 
drawing-room to guests. Natasha herself 
took very little interest in anything she 
had to learn, and made no attempt to 
master what was difficult. She detested 
writing essays, and so paid a teacher 
five roubles to do this for her. There 
seemed to be very little honour among 
teachers and pupils. I was told that the 
rich girls who had written a bad exercise 
sometimes slipped a ten rouble note into 
the leaves of their books and eventually 
received full marks. At the viva voce 
lessons many of them attached a paper 
with the correct answers written on it 
to an elastic sewn into their sleeves. 
From this they read the lesson, and when 
accused of holding a paper they let go 
the elastic, which slipped up their sleeves, 
and showed empty hands. Even parents 


36 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
were known to bribe the masters, and 
girls who did not know their lessons 
often paid cleverer pupils to write their 
answers. Rostov, after the fall of War¬ 
saw, became a university town, and 
advertisements sometimes appeared in the 
local paper to the effect that students 
would write gymnasists’ essays at the 
rate of a rouble per hundred words, or 
two roubles if full marks were expected. 
Nobody seemed to think anything of 
this, and the students in question quite 
fearlessly published their names and 
addresses. Many of these young men 
were so poor that they would do anything 
to earn a little money. I remember a 
particularly attractive quartet who shared 
an attic in one of the houses in a back 
street. They could only afford one meal 
a day, and used to wander arm in arm 
through the town, flirting over their 
shoulders with all the prettiest girls, and 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 37 
singing with their starved voices. It 
was tacitly understood that they were 
never invited out to dinner together as 
they had only one good pair of shoes 
between them. 

Her last day at school was a great 
event in a Russian girl’s life. She received 
her certificate and was considered a 
“ young lady.” The occasion was cele¬ 
brated in various ways, but there was 
always a party to which the young friends 
were invited. The parents gave their 
daughter handsome presents, the rooms 
were filled with flowers, and there was 
sometimes dancing. Natasha was delighted 
when she left the gymnasium, as she could 
discard her uniform and attend those 
cinemas from which schoolgirls were 
excluded, the pictures shown at these 
institutions being divided into two classes 
—those to which a young girl might go, 
and others suitable for an older person. 


38 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Of course the schoolgirls evaded the law. 
The close of her scholastic career marked 
the beginning of a life of leisure for 
Natasha, as was the case with most young 
girls who did not continue their studies 
at the university. She literally had no 
interests beyond the theatre and the 
cinemas. She had so much money that 
everything she should have done for her¬ 
self was done for her, and she sometimes 
cried for sheer boredom. “ Que voulez- 
vous ? ” said her governess to me, 
“ maintenant elle attend le mari.” And 
it was true. “ How I wish I could marry 
me,” she used to say, flinging her arms 
above her head and gazing into space. 
“ I would not mind even if I did not love 
so I could marry now at the once. I 
am already seventeen, and did not grand¬ 
mother marry when she was fourteen ? ” 
“But, Natasha, if you married some one 
you did not care for, later you might 


A RUSSIAN BOURGEOIS HOUSEHOLD 39 
meet some one you loved, and then your 
life would be ruined.” “Pooh! I would 
take a lovair. It is easier so if there are 
children.” It was useless to expostulate. 
I could only point out the disadvantage 
of such an arrangement. She used to 
listen with her eyes half closed and her 
head on one side, and then suddenly 
throw her arms round my neck, saying 
between kisses, “Oh, Little Spider” (her 
name for me because I was thin), “dear, 
you will always be funny and English. 
So will you nevair be married.” We 
usually left it at that. 


CHAPTER III 


THE REVOLUTION 

W E led a slack, luxurious life for 
the first month after my arrival, 
driving in the sleigh or the car, going 

to theatres or cinemas nightly, and eating 

the rarest dainties. In our house white 
bread, milk, and sugar were plentiful. 
We had cakes every day. How this 
was possible I do not know, seeing that 
we had tickets for a limited allowance 
of sugar and flour. There were, however, 
sacks of each hidden in an unused room. 
A certain amount was given out daily 
to the cook, and when the contents of 
the sacks began to get low they were re¬ 
plenished. And while we ate cakes and 

chocolates at twenty roubles a pound, 

40 


THE REVOLUTION 41 

caviare, and good fresh meat, peasants 
stood shivering hour after hour outside 
the bakery, their tickets clutched between 
blue fingers, waiting for a loaf of bread. 
If there were not enough to go round 
they went away empty handed. Some of 
them lined up at midnight and waited 
till the shops opened in the morning. 
They had families to feed and could not 
be turned away. I used to watch their 
patient, tired faces, and the pale little 
children, sitting in the snow on over¬ 
turned baskets, and wonder how long 
it would be before they would rebel. 
A little white-faced factory-girl haunted 
my dreams. It was Anna Ivanovna, 
an orphan with two small brothers. She 
used to stand at the bakery door, her 
head wrapped in an old brown shawl, 
her thin body shivering with cold as the 
snow beat relentlessly against her. She 
always carried a large basket and waited, 


42 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
one of many, in the long queue outside 
the shop, her eyes looking straight in 
front of her, her chin thrust slightly 
forward, the picture of utter weariness. 
Many other women stood before her and 
many behind, all with a look of dogged 
patience on their faces. Only when the 
door opened to admit the first five did a 
momentary gleam of interest creep into 
their eyes. Day after day Anna stood 
at this door, sometimes in the middle of 
the line of women, sometimes at the end. 
Her position depended upon the time it 
took her to walk from the factory where 
she worked, and though she tried to move 
quickly she had often to stop and rest 
because her limbs, weary with standing, 
refused to support her. Long hours at 
the factory, where she earned a mere 
pittance, the time she spent outside the 
bakery waiting to change her bread ticket 
for a loaf, and the haunting anxiety lest 


43 


THE REVOLUTION 
there should not be enough bread to go 
round, began to tell. Anna Ivanovna 
grew paler and more fragile every day. 
As time went on she seldom managed to 
take her place among those at the begin¬ 
ning or in the middle of the line, but 
stood among the later ones, and after 
a dreary waiting was often sent away 
empty handed, for the scarcity of food 
increased daily. At last there came a 
day when she was later than usual. 
Those among whom she used to stand 
looked for her anxiously, and when she 
did not appear some shrugged their 
shoulders, but others gazed across the 
steppes and wondered. . . . Anna Ivanovna 
was dead. They wrapped her in the old 
brown shawl, and two men in white cowls 
carried the poor emaciated body in an 
open coffin. The thin face was uncovered 
so that all who cared to look might see 
Anna Ivanovna in her last sleep. A 


44 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
priest walked in front with a banner, 
and two white-clad figures, carrying the 
black coffin lid, followed him. Anna’s 
little brothers, carefully holding a picture 
of the Virgin and Child, wrapped in an 
embroidered towel, came behind. There 
was no sound but the “ crunch, crunch ” 
of the snow as it powdered under their 
feet, and the hoarse cries of a few black¬ 
birds flying low in front of the coffin. 
As the little procession passed the bakery 
where Anna had spent so many weary 
hours, the women crossed themselves, 
and one whispered to another: “ Yester¬ 
day Michael Grigorovitcli, to-day Anna 
Ivanovna, to-morrow perhaps thou, per¬ 
haps I. Who knows ? It is the price 
of war.” 

Many things were the price of war, 
but they were only apparent in the streets 
and by-ways, and certainly not in our 
house. We lived on the fat of the land. 


THE REVOLUTION 45 

The war scarcely seemed to touch us. 
Life consisted in seeking amusement— 
always amusement—to pass the time. 
There were days which seemed almost 
too long, and one yearned for the rush 
of an English war-time week, with hardly 
time to get through the work. Visits were 
paid to the hospitals, and cigarettes and 
fruit given to the soldiers, but in many 
cases these too seemed only a pastime, 
and when the scarcity of food increased 
were abandoned. 

When we were driving in the town we 
often met detachments of soldiers on their 
way to the station. They always sang 
a curiously melancholy chant, now all 
together, now in solo. Nobody waved to 
them or cheered them. They, too, were 
the “ price of war.” I did not realize, 
until I was told, that they were off to 
the Front; they seemed so inadequately 
prepared. Their boots were bad, and 


46 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
where they gaped at the back were 
stuffed with bits of old sacking. Some¬ 
times there was one rifle between three 
men. “ I suppose they will be armed 

when they get to the fighting line,” I 
said. “ Perhaps. But I don’t think so. 

You see, there are a great many of them 
and there is not enough equipment.” 
“ But surely the Government knows. 
It is abominable. We ought to organize 
a protest.” “It is a good thing you 
are talking English; otherwise you would 
get us all into trouble. Do be careful.” 

Every time I met these soldiers I 
thought that it would not be possible 
for them to stand such conditions for 
long, and that Russia would be obliged 
to give in. Everything indicated that a 
change, and a sudden change, must take 
place. The country was literally worn- 
out. An influx of refugees had helped to 
cripple her resources, food was scarce, 


47 


THE REVOLUTION 
the prices of necessities rising daily, the 
soldiers badly equipped and their families 
hungry. But the people seemed so patient 
and resigned, so filled with a sort of 
melancholy fatalism, that it was obvious 
only something sudden and brilliant would 
rouse them. And then the Revolution 
came. 

We in the south could not realize 
what was happening. We felt rather 
than knew that something had changed, 
that the old life was passing away and 
that somewhere a struggle was taking 
place. News from Petrograd ceased 
suddenly. For days the newspapers 
did not arrive, and only local trains 
shunted into the station. Groups of 
people stood at the street corners gossip¬ 
ing, stopping the passers-by. “ Have you 
had any news?” “None, have you? 
There’s something in the air.” The 
wildest rumours were current, and food- 


48 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
riots were threatened; the streets were 
crowded, and nobody seemed to go to 
bed. Three days passed. The tension 
increased, and just when it seemed as 
though the people could wait no longer 
a messenger came from the station, and 
in less than half an hour the whole town 
knew that the Tsar had abdicated, and 
that the students and workmen were 
fighting against the police in the streets 
of Petrograd. Riots were feared in Rostov, 
and many of the rich people expected 
pogroms, but the town was wonderfully 
orderly, and but for the open-air meetings, 
the processions, and red flags of liberty 
floating everywhere it might have been 
an ordinary feast-day. Definite news 
from Petrograd did not come in for 
several days, and of course rumours 

increased. We heard that the Tsarina 
had been murdered and that all the royal 
palaces were in flames. Later this was 


THE REVOLUTION 49 

denied, and when the actual news began 
to arrive the rejoicing was so great that 
many of the rich merchants, stricken 
with panic, doubled the guard round their 
houses and closed their shops; but there 
were no excesses, and the contrast to the 
situation in Petrograd was very marked. 
The following letter received from a friend 
living in Petrograd at the time shows 
how differently the two towns were 
affected: 

4 4 On Friday, March 9th, over the 
Petrogradsky side there had been much 
rioting, trams overturned, and shops 
pillaged, etc. Here, the streets were 
crowded with work-people on strike, all 
apparently very pleased with themselves. 
Suddenly a huge crowd came surging 
along, pursued by mounted Cossacks, I 
watched them pass. What struck me 
most was that the Cossacks, who are 


4 


50 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
usually selected to do the dirty work 
of Russia, were singularly gentle with the 
mob, which was not in the least afraid 
of them. On Saturday the temper of 
the people began to be very nasty, and 
on Sunday there was a real massacre. 
It appears that five thousand machine 
guns had been put on the roofs of the 
principal buildings, ostensibly for the 
purpose of defending the city against the 
Germans, but, as one is reluctantly 
obliged to admit now, in anticipation 
of the revolution. The police began 
firing on the people. The different 
regiments gradually went over to the 
people after firing one against the other. 
Officers were shot or bayoneted, and 
of course many old grudges were avenged. 
I saw from the window three motor- 
lorries full of dead bodies flung in anyhow, 
and then a very young officer, who refused 
to give up his sword, shot dead, and, 


THE REVOLUTION 


51 


lastly, which drove me away once and 
for all from that window, a policeman 
bayoneted, and then his face jumped on 
by six soldiers. ... In the evening the 
soldiers came to take away old General 

K-, who lived in the flat below ours. 

He is well over eighty. The servants 
rushed out to see, and the cook, a woman 
of about forty, stood screaming after 
him, ‘ Hurrah, old devil, you will soon 
be red meat!’ He was released the 
same night, but died from the shock. 
At ten p.m. things were at their worst. 
Have you ever heard a mob howl ? Well, 
I pray God you never may. Mingled 
with the howling there were the screams 
of people being done to death. The 
streets were red, red, red. The next 
morning the shooting continued. Officers 
were being disarmed, and, if they offered 
any resistance, shot. At a quarter to 
four that afternoon our house was attacked 



52 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
and the soldiers came swarming up, 
swearing some one had been shooting from 
the window. I denied this, but they 
set the machine guns on us and blazed 
away for over an hour. . , « My sym¬ 
pathies are entirely with the people. They 
have been abominably treated. The city 
was full of flour and sugar when it was 
searched. ...” 

After a few days the excitement in 
Rostov died down, to the disgust of the 
newsboys, who tried to accelerate their 
sales by shouting that the Kaiser had 
committed suicide, and that the Crown 
Prince had hanged himself. The people 
began to organize meetings in order to 
ascertain their position under the new 
regime. The police, like the Snark- 
hunter, “ softly and silently vanished 
away.” In any case they had no power, 
for they were deprived of their fire-arms, 


53 


THE REVOLUTION 
and the people simply refused to recognize 
them. Meetings, which had hitherto 
been considered criminal offences, were 
held in the town gardens, in the streets 
—in fact, everywhere. There was much 
cheap oratory and a few earnest, soul¬ 
stirring speeches, and the students spent 
their time in showing how the new 
democracy would affect the lives of the 
Russian people. It was curious to watch 
these young men, standing on broken 
chairs or on the railings, their eyes burn¬ 
ing with enthusiasm, enumerating one by 
one the points in favour of the new 
regime, and gently trying to explain, as 
though they were teaching children, how 
the peasants would benefit. Young 
workmen listened, doggedly silent and 
incredulous, or wildly enthusiastic; girls 
with bright handkerchiefs round their 
heads stood open-mouthed, drinking in 
every word; old bearded moujiks nudged 


54 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
each other, but did they understand ? 
“ That’s good,” said one; 44 the boy’s 

right, and he has learning.” 44 But,” 
objected another, 44 if we have a republic, 
who’ll be Tsar ? ” 44 What is a republic, 

anyway ? ” asked a third. Some one 
hazarded, 44 Perhaps it’s a woman.” 
44 Well, perhaps she’s good-looking. Hur¬ 
rah, tovarishchi (comrades)! hurrah for the 
republic ”—and away they went, thor¬ 
oughly pleased, leaving the speaker 
still on the chair, helplessly staring at 
their vanishing backs and wondering 
whether he himself was quite certain as 
to the meaning of democracy. If the 
average peasant did not understand the 
terms 44 republic ” and “ democrac}',” be 
certainly thought he realized the full 
significance of the word 44 liberty.” He 
was just like a child whose nurse was on 
a holiday; be was at a loose end and 
thought he could do whatever he pleased. 


THE REVOLUTION 55 

Men and women in domestic service had 
attended a large meeting and had passed 
a resolution that they would no longer 
be called “thou” by their employers, 
and that they would not work more than 
eight hours a day; so that a servant, 
if she had risen in the morning at seven, 
would often refuse to do any work after 
three o’clock in the afternoon, regardless 
of the fact that she had probably spent 
several hours sitting in the kitchen doing 
nothing. Any remonstrance brought the 
stereotyped reply: “Now it is liberty.” 
In our household this meeting produced 
a wild disorder. The maidservants 
celebrated it by giving a party. Only 
the old nurse wept unrestrainedly in a 
corner for her Tsar. “ Ei, ei! the little 
father has gone. What will become of 
us all ? ” Neither the coachman nor 
the chauffeur had been required during 
the day, and had been ordered to be 


56 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
ready at 7.30 p.m. to take the family 
to the theatre. Seven-thirty chimed but 
no conveyance arrived. Eight o’clock 
struck and a furious master sent for the 
housemaid. What had happened to cause 
this inconvenient delay ? “ Cvoboda ” 

(liberty). The dvornik was ordered to 
harness the horse and to drive the barin 
and barinia to the theatre. But the 
car and the carriage, not to mention the 
horse, were missing. “ Cvoboda,” re¬ 
peated the maid stolidly. And, indeed, 
as it was after three o’clock, the car and 
the carriage were helping to celebrate 
the liberty of the people and were taking 
the chauffeur’s friends for joy-rides in 
the town. The barishnia wept and 
wished the Cossacks would come and 
force the “ simple people” to work; but 
the Cossacks shared the respect for 
Cvoboda and so nothing could be done* 
Of course the chauffeur was dismissed. He 


57 


THE REVOLUTION 
grinned, and hinted that very soon the 
“ bourgzhui ” (bourgeoisie) would not 
require chauffeurs as they would have 
no cars, and sure enough, shortly after¬ 
wards, all motor cars were commandeered 
by the Soldiers’ and Workers’ Union, 
though ours remained in the garage as 
it was too weak for their work. En¬ 
gaging a new man to take the place of 
the one, who had been dismissed, was a 
difficulty. Every one, who applied for 
the post, required such a large salary and 
so much free time that it seemed hardly 
worth while keeping a car. An amusing 
dialogue through the telephone was after¬ 
wards reported to me, and it showed 
how the attitude towards the “ intelli" 
gentsia ” was gradually changing. 
Illiterate Voice: “ Is Sabaroff in ? ” 
Mme . Saharova [stiffly) : “ Gospodin 

(Mister) Sabaroff is not at home.” 
Illiterate Voice [loftily): “Oh, well, 


58 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
when Sabaroff comes back tell him to 
ring up Gospodin Chauffeur.” 

Home life, and in many cases labour, 
became completely disorganized. In house¬ 
holds where a sense of humour lurked, 
the phrase, “ Now it is liberty,” became 
a standing joke, and the members of the 
family just shrugged their shoulders and 
did the work themselves. Servants, who 
wished to go to the cinema, sauntered 
out of the house when they pleased; 
workmen, bored with what they were 
doing, temporarily downed tools and 
strolled off to meet their friends or 
organized meetings during working hours 
to discuss any grievance that was rife. 
The streets were disorderly. There was 
no bloodshed, but meetings were held 
everywhere, so that it was impossible to 
walk, and one was continually being pushed 
off the pavement by people who were 
hurrying to join the crowds listening to 


THE REVOLUTION 59 

a favourite speaker. The Jews were 
much more conspicuous than they had 
been before, and, at the time, this was 
not generally resented, though when the 
new government gave them the rights 
of citizenship the move was adversely 
criticized, particularly among the illiterate 
inhabitants of the town. An amusing 
occurrence took place at one of the big 
general meetings of the peasants when an 
old Jewess got up to speak and was 
howled down. “ But now we are sisters,” 
she pleaded. “ How is that possible,” 
said a raucous voice from the background, 
“ when you haven’t been baptized ? ” 
The meeting broke up in confusion. 

During this time discipline among the 
soldiers gradually weakened. Spring had 
set in, and those who had* not yet given 
up wearing their sheepskins must have 
suffered acutely. The convalescent men 
in the hospitals, who had hitherto been 


60 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
obliged to remain in the gardens and to 
dress respectably, discarded most of their 
clothing and wandered through the streets, 
barelegged, wearing a sort of white 
pyjamas. They used to sit about the 
pavements and on the steps outside the 
shops, and the members of the public 
were shocked. Officers were never saluted 
and were openly mocked. I, myself, 
saw a party of soldiers go up to two 
captains seated at a table in a restaurant 
and blow cigarette smoke into their faces. 

Peace talk was heard everywhere, 
especially among the peasants, who, 
though they were still enthusiastically 
on the side of the Allies, understood 
sooner than most people that Russia 
was too worn out to continue fighting. 
The bad news from the Front and the 
desertions from the army enhanced this 
idea, and we began to realize that though 
the Cossacks might struggle to the bitter 


THE REVOLUTION Cl 

end, the ordinary Russian soldiers would 
gradually lose their faith and drift back 
to their quiet home life. They were 
tired of the war and said so frankly, 
and at the pacifist meetings hardly a 
dissentient voice was heard. In any case, 
they asked, what good was the war doing 
them ? They only wanted to be quiet 
and enjoy their new liberty, and how 
could they do this if they had to fight ? 
What was the war for ? The question 
always remained unanswered, and the 
crowds dispersed talking eagerly of peace. 
The May Day procession, so picturesque 
and so wonderfully organized, showed 
better than anything else the temper of 
the people at the moment. The weather 
was perfect, and not a cloud was visible. 
The sky was brilliantly blue and the sun 
shone. The snow had long since melted, 
so that the trees were in bud and the 
air full of promise. No better day could 


62 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
have been chosen to celebrate the triumph 
of liberty. Strains of the “ Marseillaise ” 
and the tramp of many feet heralded 
the procession, and at eight o’clock we 
went to the windows and saw, coming 
towards us, hundreds of men, women, and 
children, wearing the scarlet revolutionary 
caps, and marching under banners printed 
with the words: “ Hail to Democracy,” 
“ Long life to the Russian Republic,” 
“We have won Liberty, now we want 
Peace,” “ Land for the People,” etc. 
When they passed our house they burst 
triumphantly into song, throwing back 
their heads as they sang, some with the 
tears in their eyes, others with a smile 
on their lips. On and on the procession 
came, the voices swelling in volume. It 
was a remarkable sight. “ God! ” whis¬ 
pered a young officer in mufti, behind 
me, “ where shall we be next year ? ” 
And still the singing continued, now wild 


THE REVOLUTION 


68 


and sad, now triumphant and joyous, and 
yet beneath it all there was that curious 
undercurrent of melancholy resignation. 
The heart-beats of Russia are felt more 
potently in her music than in anything 
else. First a troop of women passed, 
red-clad, walking under an arch of banners, 
greeting a democracy that had recognized 
the justice of their claim to citizenship; 
after them, a vast horde of peasants 
and work-people demanding an eight-hour 
day; then the students, future doctors, 
lawyers, teachers, all types; the starved 
workers who had paid for their books 
by going without meals; the dreamers 
with eyes full of vision; the out-at-elbow 
young optimist jogging along with “ There’s 
a good time coming ” written all over 
his beaming countenance; the pessimist 
walking apologetically and whispering to 
his neighbour that one could be sure of 
nothing in this life; the young sports¬ 
man, quick to pick up a new dance, and 


64 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
slow at his studies, not quite knowing 
what it was all about, but wanting “ to 
be in the thing, you know.” I picked 
them out and laughed and sang with 
them, and wanted to rush out and shake 
them by the hand, and do mad things. 
And still they came, a vast, unreceding 
wave. After the students walked the 
schoolgirls in brown dresses and neat 
black aprons, singing in sweet, clear voices, 
some of them quaintly serious, others 
giggling, with linked arms, and making 
little moues over their shoulders at the 
boys who came behind them; then a 
band of little girls under a banner, showing 
that even the women of the future realized 
they had entered their kingdom. Then, 
again, hundreds of factory-girls, some 
pathetically young and delicate, whose 
white faces contrasted horribly with their 
scarlet caps of liberty. They, too, carried 
banners demanding an eight-hour day. 


THE REVOLUTION 65 

At intervals soldiers marched under flags 
printed with the one word “ Land,” and 
crying at the tops of their voices, “ Peace 
without Annexation and Contribution.” 
“Da, da” (yes, yes), muttered an old 
moujik, tapping his neighbour on the 
shoulder; “ that’s what we want: peace 
without annexation and contribution.” 
But his friend was not so sure. He 
scratched his head in a puzzled way. 
“ I don’t know, comrade; I think we had 
better look those two places up on the 
map, they may be useful to Russia.” 
Poor, earnest old peasants, how little they 
understood. After the soldiers came 
quantities of Jews; old, bearded men, 
young, eager boys with dark eyes and 
the proverbial noses, full-bosomed women, 
and children, black-browed and keen¬ 
faced, singing in unison and carrying 
flags with Hebraic inscriptions. And still 
they swept on in crowds; more women, 
5 


66 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
more workmen, children, youths, and 
soldiers. Many of them wore national 
costume, making a wonderful splash of 
colour on a dusty road. Nurses came in 
ambulance carts with crippled soldiers. 
Mounted Cossacks rode up, and once a 
cart passed containing a group of children 
in fancy dress—a tableau representing 
Russia freed from the yoke of oppression. 
It was all very strange and touching. 
Perhaps half of them did not realize the 
meaning of the word “ Liberty,” but, 
then, who does ? One thing was obvious : 
that these people, so long oppressed by 
autocracy, trusted one another and forgave 
their enemies, for marching with them 
were a number of Austrian socialists, 
unguarded prisoners who rejoiced with the 
multitude. A few stragglers followed, 
principally old men, and children in red 
frocks who were for ever being snatched 
from the gutter, and then, striding along 


THE REVOLUTION 67 

as though they had bought the earth, 
their rags fluttering in the wind, their 
old sheepskin hats planted at the backs 
of their heads, came some thirty or forty 
unshaved rascals under the scarlet legend: 
“ The Committee of THIEVES greets the 
Russian Republic.” 



CHAPTER IV 


a criminal’s paradise 
HE first thing that the revolu* 



1 tionaries did when they were 
definitely sure that the old regime had 
been destroyed was to open the jail 
doors and let out all the prisoners. Not 
only were political offenders liberated, 
but habitual criminals, condemned for 
petty larceny, robbery, and arson. The 
streets were crowded with these starved, 
evil-looking creatures, and the number of 
beggars increased to such an extent that 
it was impossible to take a walk without 
being followed by at least three at a time. 
Many of them were obviously in great 
distress, and they sat on the pavements 
or on the steps outside the church, crossing 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE 09 

themselves whenever anyone passed, and 
moaning. If they were suffering from a 
paralysed leg or twisted arm, the limb 
was uncovered so that all could see the 
cause of their misery. Some of them 
left their coats unfastened exposing open 
sores on their breasts, and in the intervals 
of praying God to bless those who gave 
them money, they ate sunflower seeds 
and spat the husks into the road till 
one felt that the air must be thick with 
germs. There was no law to cope with 
the beggars, and they were not helped 
by the town. Many of them were quite 
wealthy, but were so used to the life 
that the}^ could not “ retire.” After the 
downfall of the police they increased 
rapidly, and among them were quantities 
of children sent out by their parents who 
either could not or would not work. 
Certainly these babies w r ere most attrac¬ 
tive. They w*ere .brown as berries and 


70 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
bright as buttons, and they always ran 
up and down the paths, one hand out¬ 
stretched for alms and the other clutching 
at garments which were so big that they 
were for ever falling off. Many of them 
were little Armenians. “ Bejentze, bar- 
ishnia, bejentze” (refugees, miss, refugees), 
they used to cry. “ Give us a copeck— 
just a little one.” They had a fantastic 
language of their own, and paid one the 
most delightful compliments. “ Give me 
a copeck, my little golden princess.” 
“ Chocolate-lady, chocolate-lady, give me 
something.” “ The sweet-smelling pearl 
won’t go away without giving something 
to the bejentzA” “My marmalade child, 
give me a copeck ” ; and the longer one 
kept them waiting the more extravagant 
their phrases became. Once I refused 
to have anything to do with a dirty little 
urchin who had run along by the carriage 
and stood on the step for quite ten 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE 71 
minutes while a steady flow of compli¬ 
ments issued from his lips. Finally he 
grew tired and jumped to the ground. 
“Tfuh! tarakan ” (black beetle), he cried; 
“ you are only a bourguika after all.” 
At this time the attitude to the bour¬ 
geoisie was undergoing a very marked 
change, and to be called a “ bourguika ” 
was considered by the populace an insult. 
Apparently anyone who wore a hat instead 
of the shawl affected by the peasants was 
in this category; and if one were well- 
dressed, a walk through a poor quarter 
of the town was often most embarrassing, 
as one had to run the gauntlet of scornful 
eyes, and hear prophecies of one’s abject 
condition when the bourgeoisie would be 
crying for mercy. I began to wonder 
whether the Sabaroffs were not very 
unwise to dress so expensively and to 
appear so obviously wealthy, but they 
laughed, saying that the “ simple people ” 


72 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
were too stupid to attack the bourgeoisie 
and would be afraid to rise in a body 
in Rostov, which was a Cossack town. 
Even those people, who were beginning 
to foresee difficulties, put their trust 
in the Cossacks, and when the news from 
the Front continued to be bad they always 
maintained that the Cossacks at least 
would be faithful, and that they would 
force the soldiers to carry out Russia’s 
obligations. 

In spite of the Sabaroffs’ incredulity, 
however, the feeling against the bourgeoisie 
was very obviously increasing. Secret 
meetings were held in the town, reports 
of which leaked out by degrees, and it 
became generally known that resolutions 
had been passed advocating the exter¬ 
mination of capitalists, and mentioning 
by name certain families in the town. 
The Sabaroffs and their relations, the 
Popoffs, were continually being cited, 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE 73 
as they were by far the richest people 
in Rostov, and when I drove with Natasha 
in the town and turned my head I some¬ 
times saw fists shaken at our retreating 
carriage. Once when we were playing 
tennis, some workmen climbed on to the 
wall and threw a brick at us. “ Their 
houses are cemented with the blood of 
the people,” said the orators, and yet 
the Sabaroffs and the Popoffs had done 
much good in the town by providing 
free meals for the students and giving 
large donations to the hospitals and 
orphanages. Little by little these secret 
meetings ceased, and matters prejudicial 
to the interests of the bourgeoisie were 
discussed in the public gardens; families 
which the people hoped to attack were 
threatened, houses shortly to be pillaged 
were indicated; and it was openly boasted 
that the streets of Rostov should be 
44 washed with blood.” The markets were 


74 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
haunts of advanced revolutionaries, and 
the servants were perpetually returning 
with extravagant stories, which, though 
they were only half believed, gave rise 
to considerable anxiety. 

An increase of crime added to the 
difficulties, and night-watchmen refused to 
guard houses unless they were given 
revolvers, because they feared to be over¬ 
powered by the bands of miscreants who 
went about committing highway robberies 
and breaking into shops. Thefts even 
took place in the main streets while 
people calmly looked on, afraid to ex¬ 
postulate and not knowing to whom 
they should apply for help. Many of the 
townsmen rather foolishly mistrusted the 
melitz, who had taken the place of the 
imperial gendarmerie, and cases, when 
intervention from this body would have 
been advisable, were very often left 
unreported. Ladies, wearing handsome 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE 75 
furs, were sometimes quietly stopped and 
relieved of their coats before several other 
people, who looked on helplessly, while the 
robbers climbed into a cart driven by 
one of their gang and drove away. Thieves 
dressed as officers hid in lonely streets 
waiting for people to return from the 
theatre, so as to take any jewels they 
might happen to be wearing. Such men 
often had friends among the servants 
of the rich people, who used to warn 
them of the most auspicious moment 
for stealing. On one occasion the church 
of Nahitchovan, the town adjoining 
Rostov, was despoiled. And on another, 
workmen, thinking they had found gold, 
tore away the brass from the statue of 
Catherine the Great. Early in May, 
1917, jewellers were attacked so often 
that their shops were closed for several 
days and general panic prevailed. A 
number of students undertook police 


76 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
work and patrolled the streets during the 
early part of the evening, obliging motorists 
to light their lamps and to drive at a 
reasonable pace through the town. It 
was found necessary to do this as 
the thieves often went about in motor¬ 
cars in order to escape more easily with 
their booty. It became rather unsafe , 
to go out at night as the melitz, on 
watch for brigands, used to shoot at 
random, and it was impossible to know 
when and where they were aiming. 

In the meantime the scarcit}^ of food 
and other necessities increased by leaps 
and bounds. Sometimes the meat market 
was closed for a whole week. Game was 
bought by the rich people and their servants 
were given fish. This caused a great 
disturbance in our household, and one 
more crime was committed in the name 
of Liberty. Our cook did the marketing 
for the establishment, and was blamed 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE 77 

by the servants for the lack of variety 
in the meals. She explained that she 
could not buy what did not exist, but 
no one believed her, and one day the 
coachman followed her into her room and 
beat her till she was badly bruised. Her 
cries brought Mme. Sabarova to the 
rescue. She remonstrated with the coach¬ 
man, whose face expressed the utmost 
amazement: 4 4 Wliat, does the barinia 

mean to say I may not even beat her 
cook ”—a pause— 44 now it is Liberty ? ” 
Occasionally, after a universal holiday, 
and such holidays were frequent, there 
would be no bread in the town. Oil 
increased in price, and the commoner 
type of shoe was only sold to ticket- 
holders, who waited in queues outside 
the shops. The price of boots was pro¬ 
hibitive, and the largest shops rarely 
contained more than fifteen pairs. Three 
hundred roubles was charged to make a 


78 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
pair of high boots (lady’s size) to order. 
At one time all the cinemas closed for a 
while owing to the shortage of coal, and 
when charcoal gave out we could not use 
the samovar for ten days. These depriva¬ 
tions excited the people, so that well- 
dressed men and women became the 
subject of bitter comment, and when their 
backs were turned they were cursed. The 
peasants were not sufficiently sure of 
themselves to grumble openly when they 
were not supported by a crowd; they 
only expressed frank rebellion at meetings 
attended by their own kind. They were 
just beginning to feel that a certain power 
was theirs, but they did not yet know how 
to use it. It seemed to me that they 
would always go with the tide, for if 
one talked with them, giving new ideas, 
they almost invariably agreed and were 
gently respectful and kind, unless they 
were five or six to one, when they would 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE T9 

take the opinion of the stronger side, and 
I always felt that a capable minority, 
strong simply because it was organized, 
would win the support of the peasants 
by the mere fact that it was 
already arranged and easy for them to 
follow. 

Drunken men, who had rarely been 
seen in the streets after the ban on 
vodka, now became more common. We 
used to see them reeling up the road and 
lying huddled about the paths asleep, 
or sick from whatever poisonous concoc¬ 
tion they had been swallowing. Nobody 
bothered about them. The money in 
their pockets, and their boots, if they 
had any, were stolen, and they were left 
to sleep off the effects of their orgy, 
or kicked into something like wakefulness 
by their relatives who had come to seek 
them. No one knew where they^ obtained 
their intoxicating liquor, but it cannot 


80 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
have been difficult for them to find it 
as drunkenness obviously increased. 

News from the Front became worse 
daily, and it was generally thought that 
the fall of Petrograd was imminent. 
People gave enormous sums for tickets 
in the south-going trains and were left 
on the platform. Soldiers continued to 
desert, and bands of them arrived in 
the town and wandered about the streets 
doing nothing. They filled the trains 
so that it became almost impossible to 
travel, particularly when “ place-tickets,” 
which had insured against overcrowding, 
were abolished. Soldiers swarmed into 
the carriages, occupied the lavatories, 
refusing access to them, crowded on to 
the upper and lower berths, climbed in 
at the windows, and even sat on the 
luggage-racks. First-class tickets exempted 
no one from undesirable society, and if 
a bourgeois occupied a place which a 


A CRIMINAL’S PARADISE 81 
soldier wanted he was ordered to move. To 
refuse was dangerous, as the “tovarishchi ” 
(comrades—a term by which the revolu¬ 
tionaries were universally known) did not 
hesitate to throw unwelcome passengers 
out of the window. Whether they were 
killed or not was a matter of no import¬ 
ance. This, however, had its humorous 
side, and an acquaintance of mine de¬ 
scribed how, some months after the revolu¬ 
tion, he travelled to Baku in a train 
plastered with the following notice : “ Will 
the tovarishchi kindly refrain from throwing 
passengers on to the lines while the train 
is in motion, as it creates a bad impression 
abroad.” People paid to have carriages 
reserved, but they were invariably dis¬ 
appointed, and arrived at their destination, 
bruised with jostling, ill with fatigue and 
starvation, and without their luggage, 
which had either been stolen or for which 
there had been no room. 

6 


82 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
The bad news from the Front caused 
the value of the rouble to drop, and 
prices rose to such an extent that shopping 
became a nightmare. With the rise in 
the cost of food, thieving increased, and 
it was difficult to sleep at night owing to 
the noise made by the melitz shooting 
in the streets. A party of hooligans 
broke into one of the ammunition maga¬ 
zines, killed the soldiers on guard, and 
distributed the weapons round the town. 
The bourgeoisie began to feel that the 
people were arming against them, that 
the Germans were hemming them in on 
all sides, and that there was no escape. 
They pinned their faith to Kerensky. 
The name was on every lip. Everywhere 
the word “ Kerensky ” was heard, and 
Kerensky—t alked. 


CHAPTER V 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 
HE summer, dusty and hot with 



I continuous sunshine and no rain, 
made it impossible to remain in town, and 
people w 7 ho were not afraid of travelling 
prepared to go to the Crimea or the 
Caucasus. The Sabaroffs had taken a 
“ dacha 5 5 (country house) at Ceredny 
Fontan, just outside Odessa, where they 
hoped to join their elder daughter; 
but they dreaded the four-days’ journey 
on a fc line frequented by troop-trains. 
Couriers were sent to precede them so 
that they should have as little difficulty 
as possible, and two maids were taken to 
wait upon them. In spite of these 
arrangements the journey was most 


84 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
uncomfortable, as the Sabaroffs, instead of 
travelling with as little luggage as possible, 
had brought numberless Japanese boxes 
filled with hats, blouses, and the delicate 
articles of clothing which they were afraid 
to put in the big trunks; beside a 
holdall apiece containing blankets and 
cushions. They explained that it was 
not possible to sleep without pillows, so 
that each carried two big ones and a 
little one for the small of her back, and 
looked pityingly at my one air cushion 
and light Jaeger rug. In addition to 
the Japanese boxes and the holdalls we 
had two large baskets of food, so that 
even though the all-powerful system of 
bribery had secured for us two first-class 
coupes, there was not room to move. It 
was stiflingly hot, as we were obliged to 
bolt the windows at night lest the soldiers, 
who never scrupled to disturb the “ bourg- 
zhui,” should climb in while we were asleep. 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 85 
At midnight hundreds of them boarded the 
train and banged at our door, which was 
locked. The provodnik in charge of the 
carriage, who had been promised a large 
tip, refused to admit them, whereupon they 
cursed him for pandering to the “ pigs 
of bourgeoisie ” and threatened to throw 
him out of the window. He managed to 
calm them, and we spent a peaceful night. 
The next morning we were unable to leave 
the coupe, as the corridors were filled with 
soldiers, so we spent our time reading and 
looking out of the window. We passed 
through long tracts of corn-land, woods and 
hills, stretches of uncultivated ground, curious 
little hamlets of low wooden huts and mud 
wigwams thatched with straw, and eventu¬ 
ally reached Kiev several hours late. Our 
courier met us, greatly distressed because 
he had only been able to find rooms in a 
second-rate hotel. We, however, were too 
tired to be particular, and were glad to rest 


80 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
anywhere outside the station. We spent an 
amusing evening, as Kiev was suffering from 
drought and so we could not have baths, and 
the servants, still revelling in their newly 
acquired liberty, refused to give us a meal 
because it was Sunday. Finally we bribed 
one of them to bring a samovar, and picnicked 
on tea and the remains of our provisions. I 

was sleepless, as Mme. S-had, the last thing 

at night, stuffed a bag of jewels under my 
mattress, assuring me they would be safer 
there than with her. 

We breakfasted late and then took a 
carriage and drove all round the town and 
into the country beyond. The streets were 
broad and dusty, and here and there peasants 
stood crossing themselves before little shrines. 
Young girls in wide pleated skirts gathered 
in at the waist, with embroidered aprons 
and tight white bodices full in the sleeve, 
walked barefooted through the markets. 
Beyond the town we passed a tiny cemetery 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 87 
set in a tangle of wild roses, and far below 
the level of the road a broad river stretched, 
dark in places where the water was deep, 
and, where the shallows came, showing the 
sand under its surface. Here and there the 
straight, nude figure of a man dived from 
the bank. In the distance rafts were 
piloted by gaily dressed workmen, and as 
far as the eye could see there were fields, 
hamlets, and golden-domed towns. On 
one side of the road a high plateau towered, 
and here the green and white walls of 
a monastery were thrown into relief by 
the vivid summer sky. Below the plateau 
tall cypress trees and poplars stood motion¬ 
less. The air was so still that not a leaf 
stirred, and it seemed as though life had, 
for the moment, been suspended. The 
grass, except where a hidden stream made 
it emerald, was yellow, and the landslips 
showed patches of thick red clay. It was 
a medley of wonderful colours, and above 


88 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
everything the blue sky gleamed like a 
great polished turquoise. 

We felt very far away from wars and 
revolutions and came back to earth with 
a shock when we drove up to the station. 
The entrance was so crowded that horses 
thrust their noses into our victoria, and 
when we found it impossible to push 
them out we dismounted and threaded 
our way among the carriages and market 
carts until we reached the ticket office. 
There was dirt and squalor everywhere, 
and a pungent smell of sheepskins. Soldiers 
in dust-coloured uniforms crowded the 
platforms, sleeping, eating, lounging, talk¬ 
ing. It was difficult to pass this mass of 
humanity. We had to step over them, 
walk round them, stumble against them, 
and not a finger would they move to 
give us room to pass. Why help the 
bourguikas ? We stood for an hour and 
a half in the sun, waiting for the train. 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 89 

The weather was windless, and as most 
of the soldiers were smoking, the fumes 
of bad tobacco hung about in the air. 
Several people were sick, and it was 
with the utmost difficulty that I controlled 
an inclination to faint. When the heat 
became almost unbearable the train arrived, 
and a vast crowd surged towards it, 
fighting, laughing, shouting, elbowing 
smaller people into the background, push¬ 
ing one another out of the way. Bruised 
with jostling, and out of breath, we 
struggled into our coupe and locked the 
door, while the soldiers, linking their arms 
together like alpine climbers, scrambled 
on to the roofs of the carriages, hung on to 
the steps, and smashed the windows so 
as to be able to sit astride the casements. 
Second- and third-class coupes contained 
as many as thirty people. We slept two 
on a berth and never opened our door. 
There was no restaurant car, and refresh- 


90 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
ments were not sold at the stations, so 
that after feeding on tea and bread for 
two days we arrived at Odessa thoroughly 
tired and very cross. 

Our dacha was situated tw^o or three 
miles outside the town in a large unculti¬ 
vated garden, surrounded by trees and 
fields, and about ten minutes’ walk from 
the sea. It was a low, wooden bungalow, 
furnished with the barest necessities, as 
the chairs, tables, and cupboards were all 
newly bought for the occasion, and such 
things were inordinately expensive. There 
was an asphalt tennis court and a gravel 
croquet ground, and we had all our meals 
on the veranda. The servants’ quarters 
were in a different building, the other 
side of the garden path and over the 
kitchen and laundry, and they had to 
carry the meals across to our house. All 
the time we were there we found it very 
difficult to procure meat, and so lived on 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 91 
chicken, duck, and fish, all of which were 
very dear. We spent from forty to fifty 
roubles* a day on dinner only, and this 
was considered a great deal, though later 
in the year we thought nothing of it. 
Butter was eight roubles a pound; water 
melons, which before the war could have 
been bought for five copecksf apiece, were 
now two roubles each ; the best tea was 
seven roubles a pound, and wood, which 
had been twenty-five roubles per cart¬ 
load the preceding year, had risen to 
a hundred and fifty roubles. 

We lived entirely on the estate, rarely 
going into the town, but occasionally making 
expeditions to distant villages. Once 
we walked across the fields to a disused 
garden where we gathered blue speedwell 
and little pink “ everlastings.” A peasant 
woman, who prepared hot water for us, 


* Pre-war value of a rouble about 2s. Id. 
t One hundred copecks = one rouble. 


92 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
stood at her cottage door, with children 
clinging to her skirts, and watched us 
eating. She kissed our hands when we 
gave her what was left of the provisions, 
and followed us down the road, crying 
and asking God to send us happiness. 
On our way back we passed a gipsy 
encampment, where nut-brown children, 
so ragged that they were scarcely covered, 
sprawled in the dust. The grey carts * 
and caravans were massed together to 
form a rough shelter, and the women 
were cooking over fires and eating out 
of the same pot with long wooden spoons. 
As we passed, the dogs, tied under the 
carts, strained at the ropes, and barked. 
Simultaneously the men burst into a 
fantastic song, accompanied by a little 
three-cornered stringed instrument. Dusk 
was falling, and the flickering firelight cast 
long shadows on the ground, and showed 
the wild gipsy faces, weird and almost 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 93 
inhuman. I wanted to stay and listen, 
but the men of the party hurried us on. 
They were all armed, but it was getting 
dark and they thought it safer for us to 
be indoors. 

We used to bathe every morning in 
the sea, swimming a little way out to 
avoid mingling with the naked women who 
had discarded their bathing dresses when 
once in the water. Those of them who 
preferred not to be completely unclothed 
wore short coloured shirts, believing them 
to be more hygienic than the stockinette 
“ tricot.” The greater number, however, 
lay about on the sand or in the water 
quite naked, their idea being that if they 
covered themselves people would think 
they were suffering from some physical 
defect. Of course the bathing-place was a 
little apart, but it was easily visible from 
the hotel windows and from “ Arcadia,” 
the haunt of holiday makers, who sat 


94 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
watching the swimmers and sipping iced 
lemonade. 

The summer holiday was looked upon 
by the Sabaroffs as a sort of rest-cure, 
and they spent most of the day lying in 
long chairs under the trees and sleeping 
from four to six. The days were very 
hot, so that most people got up late 
and did not go to bed until after 
midnight. We had numberless tea-parties to 
celebrate birth- and name-days, and when the 
guests had arrived in the garden Natasha 
used to take me to the window and point 
out the different families, giving a brief 
but comprehensive sketch of their personal 
history and adding original notes on 
their love-affairs. 44 Little Spider, you 
see the man with the big moustache— 
he who is so ugly ? His lovair is his 
chambermaid, and he teaches her the 
manicure so that when he no longer needs 
her she will not starve. It is an idea, 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 95 
hein ? We have her for our hands when 
we are here. It pleases him. And that 
pretty lady with the so-rouged lips; it 

is Baroness X-. Of the three men with 

her—the tall he is her husband (she 
divorced an old man for him), and the 
two others are her lovairs.” “ You talk 
a surprising amount of nonsense, Natasha 
—nobody in her five senses would take 
both her lovers and her husband to a 
party. It—well, anyhow, it’s not done.” 
“ English one, you are now in Russia. 
But even so, I, too, think she makes 
an error. The husband, he is a conve¬ 
nience, the lovair a necessity—but two 
lovairs, surely that is a luxury.” 

All this time great anxiety was felt 
as to the result of the revolution upon 
the war. Brussilov’s splendid offensive 
had temporarily raised people’s hopes, 
but when it became known that the 
soldiers had all straggled back to the old 



96 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
trenches and were holding meetings to 
decide whether they should carry out 
their officers’ orders or not, they realized 
that for a while Russia could no longer 
be said to be making war. The fall of 
Riga came as a shock to many people 
who still hoped that the soldiers would 
rally round the officers. Later in the 
year we had a Polish cook who had 
escaped in a miraculous manner from this 
town, and she gave us a long account of 
what had happened. How true it was 
I do not know, but it was extraordinarily 
vivid. She told how, when most of the 
soldiers had left the town, aeroplanes were 
sent up to destroy the bridges. Enemy 
aeroplanes were also active, so that many 
houses caught fire and the inhabitants 
rushed about the streets. The bombs 
made great craters in the roads and 
many people were killed. At nightfall 
all was dark except in places where the 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 97 
houses were burning. The noise was so 
great that when the church tower fell 
the crash was indistinguishable. In the 
midst of this the enemy launched a gas 
attack, and men, women, and children 
fell about the roads, choking and suffocated. 
Many were buried in the shell holes. 
The gates and walls of the Zoological 
Gardens were destroyed, and the wild 
beasts, terrified, broke loose and rushed 
into the town. Children were violated 
by the soldiers, who were, in many cases, 
drunk. Gold and silver were stolen, 
furniture burnt. “ It was hell, barishnia,” 
said Paulina, crying. 

The attitude towards the Kerensky- 
Korniloff affair was not unanimous. 
Many people thought that the combined 
efforts of these leaders would relieve the 
situation, and were utterly appalled 
when they suddenly discovered that the 
two were in opposite camps. Others 
7 


98 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
knew Korniloff to be a strong and popular 
man, but were convinced that a military 
dictatorship would lead to further dissen¬ 
sion in the country, and that the people 
who had just burst their bonds would 
stand nothing that savoured so strongly 
of militarism. At the time the situation 
was extremely difficult to grasp. News, 
even from within the country, was very 
long in coming through, and when it 
did arrive the accounts were so garbled 
and the versions of what was happening 
so contradictory that no one could get 
a clear idea of the position. 

In the meantime the minor disorders, 
due to lack of organization and a definite 
controlling body, were increasing rapidly. 
The environs of Odessa appeared to be 
entirely unprotected. Thieving, and even 
murder, were common, and we were per¬ 
petually being awakened at night by cries 
and shots. The fruit in our orchard was 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 99 
stolen nightly, the flowers uprooted, and 
any chairs or articles such as the tennis 
net, left in the garden overnight, had 
always disappeared by the next morning. 
Our guardian, a short, thick-set man of 
about forty, with a low type of head and 
brutal expression, was continually frighten¬ 
ing us with tales of what went on in 
the neighbourhood. We did not trust 
him, but as he lived at the lodge and we 
could get no one in his place we were 
obliged to keep him. The following notes 
from my diary will show the state of lawless¬ 
ness in the town during July and August: 

July 26th. Awakened by screams and 
shots. Two thieves entered the bungalow 
next door and stole clothes and plate. 
Grigori, the watchman, saw them come 
into our garden. 

July 21th. Awakened by shooting near 
the house and the barking of our watchdog. 


100 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
July 28th . We sat up late, as the moon 
was bright, and did not attempt to go 
to bed until after midnight. At about 
two o’clock in the morning I was awakened 
by cries of “ Thief” and “Murder” under 
my window. I waited for a moment, 
listening intently. The cries redoubled, 
and came from the other side of the house. 
The dogs barked furiously and shots were 
fired. I ran into the passage, where 
the rest of the family had congregated. 
It appears that Grigori had slept while 
on guard and had awakened to find two 
men on the veranda. Stealthily creeping 
round till he came to the other side of 
the house he had hoped to get help, but, 
to his alarm, ran into two more, one in 
the act of effecting an entrance through 
my bedroom window. A scuffle ensued, 
and shots were fired, the cries from the 
next-door garden and the howls of neigh¬ 
bouring dogs adding to the confusion. 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 101 
The thieves escaped, but there was no 
more sleep for us, 

July 29 th. Grigori arrived, complaining 
bitterly that his revolver would not work. 
He was given our one and only weapon, 
which he tested and pocketed. After 
measuring us with his eye for a moment 
he quietly informed us that he had no 
intention of guarding the house again 
and calmly walked away with our only 
fire-arm lying snugly in his pocket. At 
night I woke hearing stealthy footsteps 
on the gravel under my window—in the 
morning we found all the pears had been 
stolen. 

July 30 th. This morning we were told 
that men broke into our neighbour’s 
house and cut the throats of three people 
before making off with money and clothes. 

July 31st. Artillery practice appeared 
to take place in the garden last night. 

August 2nd . More shooting at night. 


102 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 

August 5tJi. Mme. M-’s daughter-in- 

law has had everything of value in her 
house stolen. 

August 5th. A ladj^ living in the neigh¬ 
bourhood left the bathing-place unaccom¬ 
panied. When half-way up the hill she 
was overtaken by two soldiers, one of 
whom pinioned her while the other divested 
her of her brooch and necklace, after 
which they thanked her and walked away 
as if nothing had happened. 

And so it went on week after week 
until it even became unsafe to wander 
about by day, and whenever we wanted 
to go for walks we either went in a large 
party or in couples, followed by an armed 
man. In Odessa itself disorders of this 
kind were not so prevalent, as there were 
too many people. Speeches were made 
in the streets, and once we saw a party 
of Austrian prisoners holding a well- 


A JOURNEY AND A HOLIDAY 103 
attended peace meeting. There was a 
good deal of illness, due chiefly to the 
difficulty of obtaining wholesome food, 
and when cholera broke out we made 
preparations to go home, only remaining 
for the baptism of Mme. Saharova’s grand¬ 
son, a quaint ceremony to which the 
priest forgot to come and was sought by 
an agitated godfather all round the town. 
He was eventually found, and, after prayers 
and prostrations, immersed the child in a 
bowl of water and finally cut off a lock 
of its hair. Those present then processed 
round the font with lighted candles, and 
afterwards adjourned to the dining-room 
for a champagne supper. 

Our return journey to Rostov was 
uneventful and tiring. The train was 
of course crowded with soldiers, but heavy 
bribes secured us a coupe to ourselves. 
We could not sleep owing to the noisy 
soldiers, the lack of space, and the raids 


104 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
made upon us by bugs, which infested 
the carriage. Food could not be bought 
on the way, and the soldiers played havoc 
with the property of the railway, breaking 
off the metal fittings, stealing the brass 
taps, and converting the plush cushions 
into strips for puttees. We were lucky 
to have been travelling in so big a party, 
otherwise we should have shared the 
discomfort of other passengers and been 
obliged to submit to discourtesy and even 
robbery. 


CHAPTER VI 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 


y^UTUMN found us once more in Rostov 
JTjL with the garden full of late roses 
and chrysanthemums, and the yard noisy 
with poultry. Warnings of an approaching 
famine had caused prudent people to lay 
in a good supply of chickens, ducks, and 
geese, which were daily rising in value. 
Most necessary articles were seven times 
as expensive as they had been in the 
spring, and the sugar and meat allowances 
per head had been reduced to one pound 
a month and three-quarters of a pound 
a week respectively. It was not, however, 
always possible to buy as much as this, 
and shortly afterwards the allowance was 

still further decreased. Mediocre soap 
105 


106 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
was seven roubles a cake, perfumes from 
a hundred roubles a bottle. Material 
was so scarce that we had tickets for 
clothes, and were allowed to buy only one 
new blouse for the winter. Woollen stuff, 
poor in quality, cost from fifty to a 
hundred roubles an arsheen (about three- 
quarters of a yard), and ready-made 
costumes did not exist. High boots, 
made to order, could not be purchased 
under five hundred roubles a pair, and 
for sixty roubles repairs were badly exe¬ 
cuted. Leather was scarce and rubber 
was used in its place. Simple hats made 
with inferior materials cost at least a 
hundred roubles, and it was so difficult 
to get food for the horses that isvoschiks 
(cab drivers) trebled their fares. The 
depreciation of the rouble forced up the 
prices of everything, and for ten gold 
roubles a hundred paper ones were given. 
Shopkeepers sometimes refused the new 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 107 
paper money, and in many of the villages 
round Rostov the peasants resorted to 
the old custom of exchange and barter, 
giving apples and grain for clothing, or 
worn implements for boots. 

The shortage of food was not remedied 
by the ticket system, because the shop¬ 
keepers, provided they had a supply in 
hand, charged the rich people what they 
pleased. This angered the peasants, who, 
although they were earning good wages, 
could not get meat, simply because the 
butchers saved all the best morsels for 
their wealthy customers, reserving for the 
poor people the bony portion of cows’ 
heads, which was often so rotten that 
it smelt bad, and for which they asked 
sixty copecks a pound. Pogroms were 
threatened, and one wet day, when the 
rain fell in a depressing drizzle, some fifty 
or sixty women marched through the 
town, one of them carrying a cow’s head 


108 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
on a pole. They shook their fists at it, 
crying, “ This is the poor man’s meat,” 
“ Give us cheap food.” The wind blew 
their wet skirts against their legs, outlining 
their forms, and long strands of hair 
escaped from under their shawls. They 
were grimly determined, and one felt 
that the patient resignation with which 
they had been used to bear their 
troubles had at last disappeared. Meetings 
continued to be held at all points, 
and the rich bourgeoisie were distinctly 
nervous. Servants began to leave, and 
when pressed for a reason always gave 
the same reply, “ The tovarishchi say it 
is dangerous, and that very soon the house 
will be blown up.” Hardly a week passed 
without our hearing something of this 
kind, and our watchman took to sitting 
behind a locked gate instead of outside, 
as he was continually being threatened 
by masked men. Once or twice some 


109 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 
of the big shops were guarded by the 
melitz, and threats of pogroms became so 
frequent that the Sabaroffs hired a flat 
in Novocherkask, whither they hoped to 
escape when it was dangerous. Novocher- 
kask, being the capital of the Don Cos¬ 
sacks, was supposed to be safer than 
Rostov, which was beginning to show a 
tendency towards Bolshevism. 

The atmosphere of the town had changed 
since the spring, and “ Liberty ” was 
running riot. During the month of October 
we did not know whether we were stand¬ 
ing upon our heads or our heels, and I 
felt as though I were living in the middle 
of a “ shilling shocker.” Not a character 
in the plot was omitted, from the masked 
villain to the blackmailed father and 
kidnapped child, and the difficulties were 
due chiefly to the release of prisoners 
from the jails. Realizing that the melitz 
had very little power, and that they were 


110 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
not likely to be arrested, these people 
united, forming various societies which 
undertook to terrorize the rich townsmen 
by writing anonymous letters demanding 
immense sums and threatening vengeance 
if their wishes were left unfulfilled. It was 
all very childish, but very unpleasant. 
There was the Union of ex-Criminals, the 
Society of the Red Hand, and the Com¬ 
mittee of Adventurers and Apaches. 
Several people received letters which 
contained threats to murder them or bomb 
their houses, and, terrified beyond measure, 
paid the money demanded, saying nothing 
to their friends. This encouraged the 
criminals, and so many families received 
anonymous letters that the matter became 
really serious. One of the townsmen who 
had had several such epistles was called 
up by telephone and asked by the Apaches 
what he intended to do. His reply was 
brief: “ Send you to the devil,” he said, 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 111 
ringing off. But he left the town for 
a couple of days, and one night his house 
was bombed. Shortly afterwards, Monsieur 
Krasnov, a well-known merchant, who was 
unpopular among his own employees, 
received a similar note. He refused to 
reply, and was threatened both by letter 
and by telephone. In the meantime 
Monsieur Sabaroff also had a note which 
had been handed to his servant by a 
sailor. It was ill-spelt and couched in 
grandiloquent terms, written on paper 
headed “The Committee of Adventurers 
and Apaches,” decorated with the figure 
of a masked man, and folded in a blood- 
coloured envelope, on which the address 
and a grinning death’s-head were printed. 
Fifteen thousand roubles was demanded, 
and a red embroidered ribbon enclosed. 
The sum was to be taken one night to a 
certain street by a maid, who was to wear 
the ribbon and give the money to a man 


112 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
who would hand her the facsimile of an 
enclosed card. Refusal to comply with 
this request was to be followed by dire 
calamity. Monsieur Sabaroff sent the maid 
plies the melitz, the result of which was 
a telephone message, saying we would 
shortly see a horrible example of ven¬ 
geance. The next day another house 
was bombed, and we received a second 
letter enumerating eleven different methods 
by which the Apaches would take their 
vengeance. “ We shall not hesitate to 
wall up our victims, ” they wrote, adding, 
“ We know you have a flat at Novocher- 
kask, but if you flee there our members 
will pursue you. We have even repre¬ 
sentatives among the police.” To put 
our nerves still further on the rack, our 
watchman naively informed us that during 
the night he had been “ awakened ” by 
the dog. Peeping through a crack, he 
saw five masked men attempting to break 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 113 
into the house. He fired in the air, 
and they made off, shouting, 46 Wait till 
next time.” We began to get very 
nervous, and matters reached a climax 
when Monsieur Krasnov’s little son was 
kidnapped, and the melitz came up to tell 
us that pogroms were expected the next 
day, as a meeting had been held during 
which the Sabaroffs had been cited as 
possible victims. We fled to Novocher- 
kask in a car. I shall never forget that 
flight. We seemed to be carried through 
the air, and nothing but another car could 
have caught us. We could not be recog¬ 
nized, partly because we were going too 
fast and partly because we had thick veils 
over our faces. Our luggage was covered 
by a rug in case the tovarishchi should guess 
we were trying to escape, and we sped 
across the steppes, clouds of dust whirling 
round us, past droves of frightened sheep 
and processions of bearded peasants with 
8 


114 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
carts. There was something extraordi¬ 
narily desolate about this region ; no houses, 
no fields, uncultivated land for miles and 
miles, corpses of horses and dogs lying at 
intervals, sometimes in the middle, some¬ 
times at the side of the road. Occasion¬ 
ally a wild-faced man leapt from behind 
a tufted knoll of grass and stared at us 
with eager eyes. Once we had a break¬ 
down, and Mme. Sabarova trembled as 
the chauffeur pulled up and went under 
the car. In ten minutes we were off 
again. A motor passed us at breakneck 
speed, and we held our breath as three 
tense white faces flashed by in a cloud of 
grey dust. We thought we were being 

pursued and might be stopped before reach¬ 
ing Novocherkask. As we neared the 
town the scenery changed, and the desola¬ 
tion was relieved by a few isolated huts, 
some mills, and, in the far distance, a 
church with gilded domes. We spent 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 115 
five days in hiding, while the situation 
in Rostov became more serious. Monsieur 
Sabaroff, who had returned after the third 
day, was unable to leave home unarmed 
and without a detective. The house was 
like a fortress. Armed and mounted 
members of the melitz rode up and down 
the garden all night. Detectives slept 
in the unused rooms, and a guard was 
placed in the kitchen, which looked out 
on to the high road. Twice the house 
was attacked by masked men who arrived 
in a motor, but who were unable to do 
much material damage owing to the 
strength of the guard. Every day a note 
appeared mysteriously on the veranda or 
was thrown on to the garden path, or a 
telephone message was received. Monsieur 
Sabaroff tried to temporize by offering 
a smaller sum, but the Apaches loftily 
replied that their president did not see 
his way to considering the proposal. In 


116 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
the meantime our hiding-place became 
known, so we returned home escorted by 
two Cossacks and a detective. That 
afternoon the town was horrified to hear 
that Monsieur Krasnov’s little son had been 
found buried in a sitting position in a 
field. A post-mortem examination showed 
that the child had been starved, and that 
death was due to strangulation. After 
the little boy had been kidnapped, the 
father had advertised, saying he would 
pay any sum provided the child were 
brought back. Six different criminal 
associations answered, each saying they 
had the child and suggesting, in every 
case, a different meeting-place. The poor 
father did not know what to do, and the 
delay cost the boy bis life. Reports of 
this appeared in the local papers, and were 
followed by an epidemic of anonymous 
letter-writing. Some children of quite 
poor people were kidnapped and held up 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 117 
for ransom, two young girls disappeared 
from a school, and the wife of a rich 
merchant who lived in Novocherkask was 
chloroformed in the cinema at Rostov 
and kept a prisoner until her husband 
had paid a large sum of money. A friend 
of Mme. Sabarova overheard in the market 
a plot to kidnap Natasha and her cousin, 
and for days we could not leave the house, 
and when at last we ventured to go for 
a short walk we were accompanied by a 
detective. After some weeks’ anxiety 
the melitz succeeded in running our tor¬ 
mentors to earth, and they were imprisoned. 
Every one knew, however, that events were 
moving with such rapidity that all 
criminals would again be liberated and 
that this precautionary measure would not 
even afford a temporary respite, because 
other societies were still active. Indeed, 
anonymous letters continued to arrive, 
and even poor workmen were robbed and 


118 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
threatened. Though these weeks were 
nerve-wearing, they were, at times, very 
amusing, and we were so unstrung that 
anything, however remotely funny, gave 
us food for laughter. Our gardener’s 
son disappeared, shortly after the death 
of the little Krasnov. The parents were 
frantic and sought him everywhere. The 
mother went to the melitz head-quarters 
daily, weeping for her “ little pigeon.” 
For a week there was no sign of the 
child, and when we had given up all 
hope, and the father had burnt a candle 
for him in the parish church, a disap¬ 
pointed little figure, dusty and forlorn, 
slunk in by the back door, saying it was 
no good playing Robinson Crusoe in 
Rostov because there were no goats to 
kill. 

Hardly a day passed without either a 
murder or a robbery, and such crimes were 
almost invariably committed in well- 


119 


% AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 
frequented streets, and often in the big 
hotels, where it was probable that porters 
were bribed by the brigands to leave the 
doors unguarded. The people in the 
hotels were accosted by these armed and 
masked villains and forced to lie on their 
faces on the floor while wholesale robbery 
took place. They were obliged to give 
up money and jewels, and on one occasion 
three English officers happened to be 
dining at an hotel which was attacked in 
this way. The robbers were very polite. 
They had no quarrel with foreigners, but 
they must request the Englishmen to be 
so kind as to get under the table. The 
Englishmen lit their pipes and obeyed. 
They could do nothing else. 

Workmen and soldiers warned the ser¬ 
vants in our house that bombs were going 
to be thrown, and that the Sabaroffs 
(“ pigs of bourgzhui ”) would soon cease 
to exist. The watchman left, as every 


120 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
night the shooting in our street increased 
and it was not safe to walk up and down 
in front of the house. We engaged people 
from the melitz to stand on guard night 
and day, but they were perpetually being 
threatened with death and so arranged 
to be on duty in pairs. After a while 
crimes perpetrated by masked men became 
so monotonous that we shrugged our 
shoulders when we heard of them, and 
continued to lead as normal a life as 
possible, taking care, however, never to 
go out at night unaccompanied by an 
armed man. 

While this lawlessness increased, events 
of political importance were taking place, 
and one night in November, after the 
Kerensky government had been overthrown 
and the Bolshevik riots had spread from 
Petrograd to Moscow, a large meeting of 
workmen was held in one of the Rostov 
committee rooms. A friend of Mme. 


121 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 
Sabarova attended it, disguised as a 
peasant, and afterwards described the 
disorder and the temper of the crowd. 
One man was hooted down to the cries 
of “ Traitor ” for saying, “ Comrades, 
let us keep our hands free from blood.” 
Fists were shaken in his face and he was 
spat upon, and sailors, said to have arrived 
from Sebastopol with a view to stirring 
up strife between the Bolsheviks and the 
Cossacks, drove him from the hall. A 
delegate from the north declared that very 
little fighting had taken place in Petrograd, 
but that events had been exaggerated 
by the bourgeoisie with a view to disgust¬ 
ing the people and making the Bolsheviks 
unpopular. This was greeted by shouts 
of “ Never,” booing and hissing, and the 
meeting broke up with cries of “ Down 
with the bourgeoisie.” 

Rumours from Moscow became more 
disquieting, and unrest in Rostov culmi- 


122 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
nated in a detachment of the local Red 
Guard attempting to seize the Post Office. 
Cossacks armed with guns and whips drove 
them off. Both sides were good-humoured 
and looked upon the whole thing as a 
joke, but the incident was too significant 
to be treated lightly, and Kaledin, who 
was then Ataman of the Don district, put 
the town under martial law. 

The elections, for which there was no 
canvassing, resulted in a gain for the 
Bolsheviks at Rostov and for the Cossacks 
at Novocherkask. It was rumoured at 
the time that Cossack regiments had 
returned from the Front, and that in the 
event of a separate peace, to which the 
Bolsheviks might, through force of circum¬ 
stances, be obliged to agree, they would 
declare the Don district a separate republic. 
Every one was waiting for something to 
happen, but what the something was 
nobody seemed to know. At the moment 


AN AUTUMN OF ANXIETY 123 
Rostov was neither fish, fowl, nor good 
red herring. The Ataman had placed the 
town under martial law, but the Bol¬ 
sheviks had won the election. It was 
something like the riddle of the irresistible 
force which met the immovable mass. 
Nobody could guess the result. 


CHAPTER VII 


CIVIL WAR 

B OOM!—a shell burst on the steppes 
sending a shower of dust and stones 
into the air. Down the road armed men 
were marching, some of them mere boys, 
the “ rag-tag and bob-tail ” of the gutter, 
who formed the local section of the Red 
Guard. Marching ? Well, perhaps that 
conve}^s an impression of double files and 
formed fours. Straggling would be a 
better word. Some were hurrying, some 
loitering, others shuffling through the 
gutter. They were all laughing, and 
every now and then one raised his gun 
and shot into the air. Peasant women 
with startled eyes peered from their cottage 
windows. Here and there a young girl 

124 


CIVIL WAR 


125 


ran through the door and mingled with 
the crowd, chaffing first one and then 
another, and dexterously avoiding the 
proffered kisses. If these men had not 
been carrying guns they might have been 
going to a picnic. They seemed so irre¬ 
sponsible and jolly. At each new crash 
they shouted “ Hurrah! ” and some of 
them began to run. 

We did not know what had happened, 
nor how this long-smouldering fire had 
burst into flame; we only heard the heavy 
booming of the cannon and the sharp, 
irritating rattle of the machine guns. I 
put on an old coat, and, twisting a shawl 
round my head to avoid looking like a 
“ bourguika,” stole into the garden and 
listened. Snow was falling, and a thin 
film had settled on the path. The air 
was bitterly cold. I pulled back the bolt 
which secured the big iron gate against the 
intrusion of unwelcome visitors, and slipped 


126 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
into the road. The detonation of the 
guns shook the windows in the houses, 
and the battle seemed to be quite near if 
not actually in Rostov. The tovarishchi 
had passed and I kept a little way behind 
them, covering the lower part of my face 
with the shawl so as not to be recognized 
by the moujiks who knew me. Old men 
were talking in groups, and I gathered 
that Nahitchovan was being shelled and 
that perhaps Rostov would be destroyed. 
I did not know why, and as no one 
seemed any wiser than myself I hurried on. 
At the corner of the main street there 
was a cannon, and beyond that another. 
An armoured car shunted along, and carts 
filled with furniture and sand-bags were 
passing in the direction of the station. 

“ What has happened, tovarish ? ” I 
asked a soldier who was guarding the 
street corner. 


“ Patotski is fighting.” 


CIVIL WAR 


127 


“ But why ? It was quiet yesterday.” 

“ He arrested the Bolshevik leader and 
now there is Civil War.” 

“ Well, but which soldiers are fighting ? ” 
“ The Red Guard. We must kill the 
Junkers and Cadets . 5 5 
“ And the Cossacks ? ” 

He threw me a quick glance and looked away. 
“ How should I know ? Go home, 
barishnia, you’ll be hurt ”—and I could 
get nothing more out of him. The word 
“ Cossacks ” seemed to have sealed his 
lips, and apparently he had no idea 
whether they were with Patotski or against 
him. This seemed a little strange. It 
was a well-known fact that the bourgeoisie 
was relying upon Cossack help, and here 
was a man, obviously about to take part 
in a battle, who did not know, or preferred 
not to say, on whose side the Cossacks 
were fighting. It certainly gave one food 
for thought, and I went home wondering 


128 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
whether we were as safe in the Don 
district as we had imagined. I found the 
Sabaroffs packing, and in a highly nervous 
state. Mme. Sabaroff was crying, and 
Monsieur rushing up and down, tele¬ 
phoning orders and counter-orders. The 
whole household was in a ferment. Natasha, 
lying on her sofa, sulked. “ Little Spider, 
dear. If you only knew how horded” 
(bored) “ I am. Father is angry as if I 
was a Bolshevik, and mother she cries. 
I wished to play halma with Fraulein, 
and she said ‘ Gott behiite.’ But it is 
impossible.” It was useless to discuss 
the affair with any one of them. They 
were all too upset to answer questions, 
and their one idea, regardless of the fact 
that the rails might be destroyed, was to 
leave the town by train and take refuge 
in Novocherkask. 

The whole day the battle raged round 
Nahitchovan, and at night the machine 


CIVIL WAR 12$ 

guns kept us awake. The next morning 
there was a short respite, and we drove 
through back streets and alleys tow ards 
the station. This was a thoroughly 
unpleasant experience. Soldiers, roaring 
with laughter, wished us a prosperous 
journey. Peasant women and girls 
shouted at us, calling their neighbours 
to come and see the rich people running 
away. To make matters worse, when 
we reached the station we were told that 
the trains were not leaving Rostov, and 
so we had to return and listen to their 
jeering remarks about our 44 short holiday.” 
When we arrived at our gates we found 
the watchman had left everything unlocked, 
and a crowd of moujiks surrounded our 
carriage, asking us whether we knew that 
perhaps one day we should have no house, 
and had therefore better take advantage 
of it while we could, and not attempt to 
go away. 

9 


180 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Thus the day began badly, and every¬ 
thing combined to make it as unpleasant 
as possible. We were warned that the 
Bolsheviks might try to cut off the water 
supply and so filled every available vessel, 
including the bath. We had no meat 
in the house and prepared to lunch on 
kasha (a sort of porridge), but our meal 
was disturbed by a terrific hammering on 
the garden gate. Natasha and I ran to 
the window and saw that the house was 
surrounded by about two hundred men, 
some in uniform, some in ordinary clothes, 
and all armed. As we looked, a number 
of them climbed on to the roof, dropped 
into the garden, and swarmed up the 
veranda steps. To prevent them from 
breaking the glass panes, Monsieur Sabaroff 
went out to meet them. His wife was 
trembling. “ They will kill us,” she said, 
and burst into tears. We tried to calm 
her, but we were all very much frightened. 


CIVIL WAR 181 

and the fact that our own servants had 
wandered into the yard and were in earnest 
conversation with the intruders did not 
mend matters. They seemed to have a 
leader, a tall, bearded creature in a fur 
coat and a slouch hat, who reminded me 
irresistibly of the villain in an East End 
melodrama. He stood with his head 
thrown back and his legs apart, denouncing 
us in the orthodox villain’s way, and the 
crowd advanced with fixed bayonets. 
“ You are hiding Cossacks here,” he said. 
Fraulein murmured something about this 
being an “ Unsinn,” and he turned upon 
her furiously. “ That woman,” he 
shouted, “ has been seen by me and others 
driving in a motor with Cossack officers. 
She and this household are against the 
people.” We expostulated, and the ser¬ 
vants watched us out of the corners of 
their eyes. The bayonets advanced per¬ 
ceptibly, and the leader called upon us 


183 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
to show our motor. Now, the car was 
tyreless and had not been out since the 
spring, but he promptly identified it as 
the machine which had been used by 
Cossack officers. The crow r d shouted 
angrily and demanded the car, which we 
said they could take away at once. We 
would have given anything to have seen 
them safely off the premises, and hoped 
that they would take the car and go. 
They remained, however, for twenty 
minutes arguing among themselves, and 
finally marched away announcing that 
they would return at midnight to search 
the house for the Cossacks, whom they 
still maintained were in the cellar. Our 
one idea w r as to get rid of them definitely 
at all costs, so we offered to take them 
over the house immediately, but this 
seemed to amuse them, and laughing 
among themselves they passed through 
the gate and away towards the steppes. 


CIVIL WAR 133 

We were worried and a little unnerved, 
for we knew that if this had been a search 
party by an authentic body it would have 
looked for the hypothetic Cossacks imme¬ 
diately instead of postponing the matter 
till midnight, when they would have had 
time to escape. The men were obviously 
brigands who wished to profit by the 
abnormal conditions and had thought of 
this ruse to ransack a wealthy merchant’s 
house. We had not the slightest idea 
how to act, and the Sabaroffs, who were 
naturally in great distress, retired to the 
drawing-room with Natasha to consider 
what they had better do. They were 
absent for a long while, and I, thinking 
we ought to decide quickly, went to find 
them. I met them at the veranda door, 
dressed in their shoobas (overcoats) and 
with shawls round their heads. They 
smiled. “ Good-bye, Miss Power; we 
shall come back when all is quiet. For 


184 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
you and Fraulein it is safe. You are 
foreign subjects ”—and they went down 
the steps into the street, guarded by the 
melitz. 

We were foreign subjects, Fraulein and 
I, and if these men who had arrived in 
the morning had been official representa¬ 
tives of the Government we might have 
been safe. But they were brigands, and 
we could not imagine how we should cope 
with them if they arrived in force We 
had three male servants and two members 
of the melitz in the house. The servants 
might be discounted. They would prob¬ 
ably open the gates for a share of the 
booty. We, with two men, could do 
nothing before a mob. We bolted the 
doors and waited, brewing strong tea 
to keep us awake. Night fell, and the 
noise of the guns never ceased. Shells 
seemed to be passing over the house. 
They gave a sort of shriek. The battle 


CIVIL WAR 185 

sounded nearer than it had done the day 
before. 

At ten o’clock four soldiers tapped at 
the gate. They asked for our car, which 
we said they could have, but they only 
looked at it and went away. Five differ¬ 
ent societies arrived, one after another; 
each demanded the car and was given 
permission to take it away. It remained 
in the garage, for none of them could 
drive. At one time three men ordered 
us to let them into the house, and w r hen 
we refused they shook their fists and 
stormed at us, threatening to break down 
the door. In the midst of this tempest 
the cook and coachman came up from the 
kitchen, shouting, “ Come to the yard, 
tovarishchi, we’ll let you in. Here there 
is white flour and sugar. The bourgzhui 
have cakes every day.” “Curse you!” 
cried the men, battering at the door, 
“ there’s a queue of two hundred women 


136 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
in this road, and they’ve waited six hours 
for bread.” The melitz strolled out. 
They were dressed as soldiers and they 
calmed the men, pretending to be with 
them, so that they finally went away 
grumbling. We returned to our strong 
tea and waited for the brigands. 

At midnight a noise took us again to 
the door. We looked through the crack 
and recognized a crowd of uniformed 
melitz who had apparently rushed up on 
bicycles, on horses, and on foot. 

“ Open the door, barishnia,” they cried, 
and we let them in. 64 Where is the 
master ? ” 

44 He is away.” 

44 But you ought not to be here alone. 
It is dangerous.” 

44 We have two guards.” 

44 It is not enough. We have just 
had a warning that a band of robbers are 
on their way to destroy this house.” 


CIVIL WAR 137 

“ What shall we do ? ” 

£< I don’t know. We can give you 
very little help. Last night sixty armed 
men in uniform, with official passes, made 
us give up nearly all our guns and ammu¬ 
nition, ostensibly for head-quarters. Later 
^ead-quarters denied having sent such a 
convoy. It was a hoax and we can now 
do very little.” 

We begged some of them to stay, and 
they arranged to patrol the street, which 
was narrow'. We were up all night 
listening to the revolver shots, which 
warned us that our sentinels were busy. 
In the morning we found holes in the 
plaster of the walls, and splashes of blood 
on the snow. 

For two daj^s the fighting continued. 
We were cut off from all communication. 
The telephones had ceased working, the 
trains were not running, and newspapers 
were neither published nor delivered 


188 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Once a party of Cossacks came down the 
main street in trams, flying the white 
flag. It was rumoured that all the fight¬ 
ing was being done by the Junkers, and 
that Patotski had been taken prisoner 
by the Bolsheviks because his soldiers 
had been too drunk to carry out his 
orders. That evening two hooligans, 
reeling up the hill, stopped in front of 
our house and, putting their heads through 
the kitchen window, which looked out on 
to the road, shouted, “ What, are these 
pigs still alive ? We thought we’d finished 
them off; we must speak to the Soviet 
about that.” 

On the third day there was an armistice, 
and the Cossacks held a conference at 
Novocherkask. I strolled through the 
town. Everything was quiet and very 
few people were about. Ambulance carts, 
full of wounded, passed in and out of the 
hospital gates. Women and children in 


CIVIL WAR 


189 


cabs or walking with large bundles, 
struggled against the wind. Nahitchovan 
was being evacuated by those who 
had lost their homes, and these melan¬ 
choly little parties came through Rostov 
hourly. 

People were very quietly dressed, many 
of them having substituted shawls for 
hats and old coats for the fashionable 
shoobas, so as not to appear quite so 
conspicuous. Most of the shops were 
still shut, but the markets had opened and 
they were visited by a continuous proces¬ 
sion of cooks, who were prudently laying 
in a stock of provisions, as it was thought 
that the fighting might go on for weeks 
if the Bolsheviks were reinforced from 
Petrograd. 

I wandered through the town until 
I reached the street where the melitz 
head-quarters were situated, and as I 
turned the corner a number of soldiers, 


140 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
shouting “ Out of the way, out of the 
way,” charged up the road shooting. 
They dashed into the melitz building and 
remained there for some time. “ What 
has happened, golubchik (little dove)?” 
I asked a cab-driver who sat unmoved 
on his box. “Oh! it is the Red Guard. 
They have arrested the melitz, who are 
most of them thieves.” 

I thought nervously of the two guards 
who had been left in charge of our house, 
and, going into a friend’s flat, watched 
the proceedings from a window. Ten 
minutes later another detachment of soldiers 
rushed round the corner, acting in precisely 
the same way as the first. I ran down¬ 
stairs into the road. 

“ What is it this time, golubchik ? ” 

“Ah! it is the Red Guard, and they 
arrested the arresters, who are thieves.” 
He looked affectionately at the wreckage 
he called a horse, and added, chucking 


CIVIL WAR 141 

his reins as the animal turned back one 
ear, “ I have been speaking with my horse 
about it, and he says, 4 Wonderful things 
are happening nowadays, little master, 
wonderful things.’ ” Apparently the first 
arrest was a hoax on the part of a number 
of brigands who wished to put an end 
to all surveillance in the town and so have 
a clear field for robbery. It reminded 
me of Clown and Pantaloon in the panto¬ 
mimes of my childhood, when the police¬ 
men always appeared at the least 
convenient moment, saying, 44 Slap-bang, 
here we are again!” 

The armistice lasted for two days, after 
which the fighting began again with 
renewed vigour, and Zeler, the ma}^or of 
the town, was arrested by the Red Guard 
and conveyed to the man-of-war on the 
river, where Patotski was supposed to 
have been imprisoned. The bombardment 
was heavy, but seemed to be down by 


142 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
the station, so that it was possible to walk 
in the back streets provided one kept away 
from the road leading to the railway. 
The town presented a curious aspect. 
Not a Red Guard or peasant was to be 
seen, but everywhere Cossacks, mounted 
and on foot, patrolled the streets. They 
were massed in the fields beyond the Don. 
They paraded the highways. Officers 
walked quickly towards the station in 
earnest conference one with another. 
The Sadovaya (the main street in Rostov) 
was guarded on either side, and the trams 
were filled with Cossack soldiers. After 
about three-quarters of an hour the bom¬ 
bardment ceased altogether and more 
Cossacks arrived. They seemed to be in 
possession of the town, yet this was hardly 
credible as there had been so little fighting 
since the armistice. It was true, however, 
for the Red Guard, when confronted by 
the well-disciplined Cossack troops, had 


CIVIL WAR 


148 


surrendered to a man, throwing down their 
guns and giving up their ammunition. 

In a short while the news was all over 
the town, and the bourgeoisie, furred and 
jewelled, rushed into the Sadovaya to 
greet the victorious army. “Hurrah! 
hurrah!” echoed from every corner. The 
pavements were crowded with enthusiasts, 
but here and there discontent showed 
plainly upon a workman’s face, and some 
of the peasant women were crying. One 
old crone, standing behind us, muttered 
fiercely, “ You can w r ear your new hats 
again now. You needn’t be afraid ”; 
and when I was going home in the dusk 
some moujiks spat at me and shouted 
“ Bourguika! ” 

Song after song the Cossacks sang, 
cheer after cheer greeted Kaledin, who was 
at the station reading a proclamation from 
his car. But among the lusty singers 
there was a number of youths sulking, 


144 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


standing at attention, refusing to join in 
the chorus. The older men shrugged 
their shoulders, and a whisper was passed 
from lip to lip that many of the young 
Cossacks had refused to fight against the 
Bolsheviks and had been beaten through 
the streets by their parents. Then we 
wondered how long this so-called Cossack 
triumph would last. 


CHAPTER VIII 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 

T HE ground was covered with a 
thin coating of snow, but there had 
been a thaw during the night, so that 
the gutters were filled with muddy water, 
rushing down from the steppes with a speed 
which prevented its being frozen in spite 
of the intense cold of the morning. A 
biting wind swept across the town towards 
the Don, and the grey sky predicted rain. 
Everything looked dirty and cold. Peasant 
women, their heads bent to meet the 
wind and their coloured shawls clasped 
tightly under their chins, walked quickly 
down the hill towards the church. The 
tolling of the bell was scarcely audible. 
Its sound was carried across the river 


IO 


145 


146 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
by the wind, and the sombre booming 
could only, be heard during a momentary 
lull. It was the burial day of the Bol¬ 
sheviks, of the men, young and old, who 
had fallen in a struggle wherein both sides 
had sought to fulfil the ideal of Liberty 
and had died, each for freedom, yet each 
bitterly hating the other. 

The procession started from the church, 
wound its way slowly through the town, 
and then passed up the hill to the ceme¬ 
tery across the steppes. At its head came 
a regiment of soldiers. Most of their 
faces were impassive. It seemed as though 
they were mentally shrugging their shoul¬ 
ders at the scene which, for them at least, 
was monotonous. After them, carrying 
wooden and iron crosses, decorated with 
embroidered cloths, walked the church¬ 
men in white tunics, followed by the 
long-haired priests in vestments, crimson 
and peacock-blue. The friends and 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 147 
relatives of the dead, an almost unending 
throng, marched slowly behind the priests. 
They were not in mourning, and they 
carried laurel wreaths and flowers and little 
baskets of food to be given to the beggars 
at the cemetery gates, who would pray for the 
souls of the dead. Some of the old people 
were crying quite freely, but the young 
ones, with shoulders thrown back, set 
faces, and eyes which seemed to see some 
thing beyond the dim horizon, marched 
steadily, purpose in every movement. One 
young girl with a pale, haggard face 
threw a look behind her, then turned and 
shook her fist at a green-gabled house 
with windows discreetly veiled, shouting 
fiercely: “Ha! peep through your cur¬ 
tains, bourgzhui. Watch the dead on 
their last journey; jog, jog, jog over the 
stones. Each coffin an enemy less, but 
our turn will come. We too shall be 
nourished by blood.” She began to 


148 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


laugh and scream. A boy put his arm 
round her and led her gently away. The 
crowd, still watching the procession, 
mechanically moved aside for her to pass, 
closed again, and hid her from view. The 
othet's marched on quietly. 

Girls passed with flowers. Men came 
with revolutionary banners, white letter¬ 
ing on a red background: “ Hail to the 
New Republic for which our comrades have 
died.” “ Peace to the victims of Civil 
War.” “ God bless those who fell for 
Liberty.” 

The rain began to fall in a blinding 
drizzle, but they did not seem to heed it 
and passed on silently. 

After the banner-bearers came men and 
women carrying the white deal lids of 
the coffins, and followed by a miscellaneous 
crowd of young girls. Behind them a 
priest walked, with bent head, swinging a 
censer. Then, before one had time to 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 149 
realize that the corpses would be exposed, 
bare-headed men carried on their shoulders 
the coffins—open—with the dead bodies 
inside. The shock robbed me completely 
of the power to move, and I remained 
frozen with horror. There were heads 
severed from bodies, limbless trunks, 
crushed faces, green, black, grey, and a 
startling white, hair matted with blood. 
One body was covered with a piece of 
white muslin, but as it passed a puff of 
wind caught the shroud in the air and 
revealed a black, contorted face and a 
trunk in pieces. And all the while there 
was the sickening odour of putrefaction. 
A voice at my side roused me and I ran 
away, out of sight of the coffins (which 
passed for three hours) and far from the 
sound of tramping feet. 

This was the only demonstration which 
the Ataman permitted. The Don district 
was declared an independent republic, 


150 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
and ministers were chosen. Meetings 
likely to prove disorderly were, for the 
time being, forbidden, and anything which 
tended to stir up strife was sternly 
repressed. The streets looked different, 
and although beggars still abounded, there 
seemed to be fewer soldiers of the hooligan 
type. The carriages of the bourgeoisie 
once more clattered over the cobbled 
streets and well-dressed girls and boys 
sauntered up and down the Sadovaya. 
There were several other good streets, 
but they never seemed to walk anywhere 
else, and sometimes during the fashionable 
hours, between twelve and two in the 
afternoon, the Sadovaya was so crowded 
that it was almost impossible to move, 
and unless one stepped off the pavement 
and walked along the road one had to 
be content with standing in a queue and 
moving only when the person in front 
allowed this privilege. As the old peasant 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 151 
woman predicted, the “ bourguikas ” were 
no longer afraid to wear hats, and now r 
that the Cossacks were in power no one 
hesitated to show that she had boots at 
five hundred roubles a pair and a 
“ shooba ” at five thousand. 

Attempts were made to cope with the 
brigandage, which had increased to an 
alarming extent during the months before 
the battle, and the Cossacks who guarded 
the streets shot at robbers or arrested 
them. Their efforts improved the situation 
slightly, though at one time it seemed as 
though two new thieves took the place 
of each one that was killed or imprisoned. 
Our house was so near the steppes that 
ne’er-do-wells haunted the street, and we 
were often awakened by the Cossacks’ 
rifle shots and the shouts of pursuers and 
pursued. One night some keys were 
found in a small hole by our back gate. 
The night watchman saw them glittering 


152 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
in the lamplight, picked them up, and 
put them in his pocket just as a girl 
came to him and begged him to go to 
the street corner and help reorganize the 
queue outside the bakery, which had 
become disorderly. He went with her, 
and returned in ten minutes to find five 
men wandering about in front of the 
house, evidently searching for something. 
He shot twice in the air and they ran off. 
The next morning the keys were found 
to fit our front and back doors and the 
garden gate, so that we knew we had a 
traitor in the house. Mme. Sabarova 
became very nervous, and always went 
round the house at night, trying all the 
doors to see if they were properly locked. 
She made a servant sleep in each of the 
sitting-rooms, on the sofas, so that every 
room should have an occupant. The 
dvornik was installed on a horse-hair couch 
in the greenhouse, and when I passed 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 153 
through at night I used to find him lying 
like Bottom in the fairy wood, surrounded 
by leafy shrubs and green palms. I do 
not think he would have been much use 
in the case of a burglary, as we all used 
to pass in and out while he was sleeping 
and he never turned a hair. The only 
advantage of his presence there was, that 
when once definitely awake he would not 
have to waste time dressing, as he always 
slept in all his clothes, plus an ancient 
and mangy fur cap and long felt boots. 
He kept a spade at his side. I never 
knew why, and when I asked him he 
only answered enigmatically, “It is good 
for many things.” Mme. Sabarova did 
not seem to have much faith in her 
household guardians, and her anxiety 
reached such a point that before going 
to bed she used to look underneath the 
tables and feel behind the clothes in the 
cupboards lest a thief should be hiding 


154 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
there. I once asked her laughingly what 
she would do if she found one, but she 
was so upset at my joking about it that 
I never dared mention the subject again. 
In spite of her fears she went to the 
theatre two or three times a week, dressed 
in costly furs and with emeralds the size 
of thrushs’ eggs in her ears, and, though 
I often suggested that it was unsafe, she 
allowed Natasha to go out for walks wear¬ 
ing pearl and diamond earrings and a 
pearl necklace. She maintained that the 
thieves would not know the value of a 
pearl. This may have been true, but 
every one in Rostov knew Natasha Sabarova, 
and knew also that she was one of the 
richest girls in the town and might easily 
be wearing valuable jewels. The rich 
bourgeoisie were not in the habit of 
hiding their wealth under a bushel, and 
so, although we were always escorted by 
an armed man, who sat on the box with 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 155 
the coachman, these bi-weekly visits to 
the theatre were a source of great anxiety 
to me. On one occasion we reached 
the corner of the main street at eleven 
o’clock, when the coachman suddenly 
turned the horses and galloped in another 
direction. Our gendarme was quite uncon¬ 
cerned. “ There are one or two corpses 
in the road,” he explained. Natasha 
smiled. “ It is only thieves,” she said 
composedly, powdering her nose. “ I 
am glad the Cosacks kill them so that 
we can be comfortable and gay. Is my 
nose very red, Little Spider, dear ? ” 

Christmas came and passed. We had 
a tree and a family party, but there were 
very few festivities. Christmas trees were 
scarce and expensive, and the prices of 
food had again risen. Few people were 
in the mood for gaiety since bad news 
was received daily from the “ Russian 
Front,” as the site of the fighting between 


156 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Junkers and Bolsheviks was then called. 
The European War was rarely mentioned. 
In some cases it was forgotten. 4 4 Why 

don’t the English come and help us ? ” 
said Mme. Saharova to me times out of 
number. 44 If they could break through 
the Dardanelles, sail up the Black Sea, 
and land four thousand men in Odessa,” 
etc., etc., and so the Russian bourgeoisie 
talked, while the Dobrovolchesky (volun¬ 
teer) Army of Junkers and Cadets appealed 
daily for recruits, and the queues of 
well-dressed men outside the cinemas 
stretched half-way down the road. 

A snow-storm whitened the last hours 
of the old year, and we sat up till mid¬ 
night, playing strange games, melting wax 
by the fire, hardening it in cold water, 
and holding the lump up to the wall to 
see the shadows of our lovers. A gadalka 
(fortune teller) came and sat in a darkened 
room predicting the future of each person 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 157 
who visited her. She was an old woman 
with a creased, yellow face and claw-like 
hands. Only her eyes seemed alive, and 
she sat with a little bag full of beans and 
pebbles, which she shook up and down, 
saying, as each different object dropped 
on to the table, that we should be rich 
or poor, happy or miserable. Natasha 
was disappointed. “ I am not to marry 
me till I am nineteen, so must I stay here 
and be borded 55 (bored) “ for two more 
years.” She sighed deeply, and was quite 
depressed until she decided that another 
method might prophesy a more hopeful 
future. She sent for six little dishes, 
set them in a circle on the floor, placing 
in one a ring and in the others a bunch 
of keys, water, grain, money, and a packet 
of sweets. A live cock was then brought 
cackling from the yard, seized by the 
wings, and dropped into the middle of 
the circle, where it thoughtfully considered 


158 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
the dishes and pecked at the one it liked 
best. If the cock pecked the ring, 
she who had dropped it into the circle 
would marry within the year; if at the 
water, the husband would be a drunkard; 
if the grain, keys, money, or sweets were 
touched, he would be greedy, miserly, 
rich, or luxurious. My experiment was 
attended by a quite unorthodox action 
on the part of the cock, which struggled 
till I dropped it, flapped its wings, and 
fled shrieking into a corner of the room. 
This cast a gloom over the proceedings, 
and every one agreed that it was a bad 
omen. 

New Year’s Day was a universal holiday, 
and all shops were shut. The Cossack 
patrols still wandered through the streets, 
but they did not interfere with the drunk¬ 
ards who rolled about, as the town was 
orderly in other respeots and no attempt 
was made to hold public meetings* 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 159 
As the days passed, those recruiting for 
the Dobrovolchesky Army doubled their 
efforts. The walls of theatres and cinemas 
were covered with posters appealing to 
all healthy men and women to join the 
Junkers and help them protect Rostov. 
The Cossacks were urged to remember 
their magnificent history and to fight 
for the land of their fathers. Young 
men of military age were begged to support 
their brothers and save the town from 
“ the Hun, the Antichrist, and the 
Hooligan,” but the Hun, the Antichrist, 
and the Hooligan were known to be well 
equipped and to have good wages, and 
so the appeal remained, in most cases, 
unanswered. The schoolboys alone seemed 
to show enthusiasm, and it was pitiful 
to see these youngsters of fifteen, sixteen, 
and seventeen marching through the streets 
in their ill-fitting uniform, while so many 
who were older and stronger lounged about 


160 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
the cinemas or spent their time at the 
theatres. A small boy of twelve, who was 
distantly related to the Sabaroffs, came up 
one day dressed in khaki. “ Why, you 
are in uniform, Meesha,” we said, amazed, 
and he told us with quick, nervous little 
gestures and shining eyes that he was one 
of the hundred and fifty children between 
the ages of eleven and fifteen who wanted 
to save Rostov, and so had joined the 
Dobrovolchesky Army as bomb-throwers. 
They wore uniform and were provided with 
three hand-grenades and a pair of wire 
clippers, and they were useful because 
they were small and not easily seen. 
“ When some of the boys heard the guns 
they were frightened and cried,” said the 
child, “ but,” he added proudly, “ the 
officers said we were men.” 

Towards the middle of January wounded 
officers were brought from Taganrog, where 
the fighting had been fierce, and many of 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 161 


the young girls helped to prepare hospitals 
in the big houses and canteens at the 
station. It was said that some of the 
dead bodies which were picked up were 
terribly mutilated. The eyes had been 
put out, feet hacked off, and patterns 
carved on the thighs. Whether these 
outrages had been committed before 
or after the death of the victim, no one 
knew, but very many bodies were treated 
in this way. A pitiful story was told me 
by one of the nurses, of a Junker, who 
would not let her leave his side, and 
who called out in delirium: “ Sistritza, 

sistritza” (little sister), kill me before 
they come. Don’t let them beat me to 
death.” 

When the fighting drew nearer we heard 
the guns daily and the station was filled 
with young officers. “ What can we do ? ” 
said one of them to me; “we fight, fight, 
fight, but they are thirty to one.” “ Isn’t 
11 


162 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Rostov helping you ? ” “ Go into the 

Sadovaya any day and you will not ask 
me that question again. Rostov could 
do three times as much as she has done. 
Inertia is the curse of our country,” he 
said bitterly. “They will give money 
for equipment, milk for the hospitals, 
because that needs no personal effort, 
but they won't make themselves uncom¬ 
fortable. We need the money of course, 
but we are in greater need of men.” 
“ What about the Cossacks ? ” He 
shrugged his shoulders. “ The history of 
the Cossacks is finished.” “ But, Alexis 
Michaelovitch, that can’t be true. The 
Don Republic is a great triumph. It will 
be democratic without being extreme. 
Kaledin has the confidence of the people.” 
“ Wait till to-morrow’s conference, made¬ 
moiselle, and then you will understand.” 

We waited for news of the conference, 
standing at the telephone the whole 


UNDER COSSACK PROTECTION 163 
evening, till we received the trunk-call 
from Novocherkask. The message was 
brief but significant. Kaledin had com¬ 
mitted suicide. 


CHAPTER IX 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 

HE death of Kaledin was a signal 



I for great anxiety. The civilian 
population thought that his victory in 
November would inspire the Don Cossacks 
with confidence, and that they would 
rally round him when the Bolsheviks 
approached. Little by little, however, 
they began to realize that only a section 
of the Cossacks could be trusted, and that 
they must pin their faith to the Junkers. 
They could only hope that Rostov, might 
be saved, but the news grew steadily 
worse, and the tales of the wounded officers 
more heart-rending, so that most people 
realized the fall of the town was imminent. 
Canteens were in full working order at 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 165 
the station, hospitals were prepared, but 
were occupied for a few weeks only, for 
when the hostile army drew nearer, wounded 
officers w'ere moved to Novocherkask lest 
they should be murdered in bed by the 
Red Guard, who had been known to 
attack the sick men in the hospitals at 
Taganrog. 

There were spies everywhere, and most 
people were careful not to mention the 
names of their friends connected with 
the Dobrovolchesky Army. 4 4 How are 
the poor invalids ? ” we used to ask each 
other when speaking of them. If the 
reply was, 44 They are very sick,” we knew 
that the Army had retreated still further 
with losses. 44 They are improving,” 
meant an advance ; 44 There is no change,” 
that they were holding their ground. 
When a short advance was reported, the 
bourgeoisie waited vvith bated breath for 
news of a victory, but bad tidings always 


166 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
followed, and an atmosphere of gloom 
spread over the whole town. 

Towards the middle of February, Rostov 
was rarely free from the sound of the 
guns, and we used to watch the flash of 
the cannon across the river, while Bataisk 
was being bombarded, knowing that each 
minute brought the Bolsheviks nearer. 
Hope was quite dead, and people trusted 
that, since the town must be left to its 
fate, it would be abandoned before the 
Red Guard bombarded and destroyed it. 
While the Junkers were fighting like lions, 
but retreating step by step, some of the 
rich people fled to other districts. Many 
disguised and went to the houses of poor 
relations or old servants whom they thought 
they could trust. Money and jewels 
were buried in the cellars, wine hidden in 
the gardens. The old white or cretonne 
covers, used in the summer to protect 
the furniture from dust, were once more 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 167 

tied on to the chairs and sofas to hide 
the handsome brocade. Pictures were 
packed away, and many people sent their 
furs and best clothes in trunks to orphan¬ 
ages and schools which were unlikely to 
be searched. And while these preparations 
were being made, the vibration of the 
shots shook the windows, and as the 
days passed the noise seemed nearer, until 
on February 21st two houses in Rostov 
were struck by shells. The next day the 
sound of the firing never ceased, and we 
could hear the whistle of the shells as they 
whirred through the air. 

The Sabaroffs prepared to escape. 
Natasha lay on the sofa threading pink 
ribbons into her nightdresses. The maids 
v r ere too busy to help her. She lamented 
ceaseless^ that she would have to sleep 
in a bed to wdiich she was not accustomed. 
Her parents wandered from room to room, 
talking in low whispers so that the ser^ 


168 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
vants should not hear, and gave orders 
to Fraulein, who was packing a suit¬ 
case. “ Of course you do not care,” they 
said to me one after another. “It is 
not your country, and the English are 
always cold.” I felt that I was a stranger 
in a strange land, and wandered aimlessly 
into the town. The main road looked 
much the same as usual, but the sleighs 
which were wont to stand at the corner, 
ready to be hired, had disappeared, and 
only the trams were running. A few 
stray carts, full of tired-looking soldiers 
and sacks, passed towards Nahitchovan. 
They looked like the vanguard of a retreat¬ 
ing army. Everywhere one heard the re¬ 
mark : “ Boje moy! ” (my God!), “ ho w they’re 
shooting.” Down by the river the noise 
was terrific. People came out of their 
houses and gazed across the frozen water 
at the flashes in the distance. Each 
explosion seemed louder than the last. 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS m 
A crash in the adjoining street brought 
a crowd of boys running helter-skelter 
round the corner, shouting that a shell 
had burst. Rifle shots from the market¬ 
place drove me homewards. The side 
streets were deserted. The sun was 
setting in a pink sky, and its gleam was 
reflected in the snow, making the ground 
look fiery. There was something indescrib¬ 
ably desolate in the way the flakes fell, 
softly monotonous, while the cannon 
continued to boom relentlessly. In the 
distance some moujiks were standing by 
a cottage door. I walked swiftly but 
quietly, hoping to pass them unnoticed, 
but having a feeling that they would 
shout at me. They did. “ There goes the 
Sabaroffs* daughter,” they cried. “ Just 
you wait, bourguika.” The breath caught 
in my throat and I hurried on. Each 
moujik I passed on the way turned and 
looked at me. I went so fast, and it 


170 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


was so slippery, that I was afraid I should 
fall. My brain did not seem to be work¬ 
ing, and I kept repeating, over and over 
again, a quotation from Richard II: 

“ The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, 
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change. 
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap.” 

“ Dance and leap—dance and leap.” At 
last I reached the house. Natasha, who 
was watching for me at the window, ran 
out. “ But you are bad. What for 
to go out when one shoots ? I thought 
you were no longer in life.” She looked 
serious. “ Listen, Little Spider, you must 
hurry. The Dobrovolchesky Staff has 
gone, and we shall hide with mother and 
father. You will go away from here. 
Your English offisairs have come for you.” 
She threw her arms suddenly round my 
neck. “ I am glad, glad, glad. So 
when all is horrid you will be gay and 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 171 
flirt-. She held me at arms’ length from 
her, and then added whimsically, “ But 
there, I suppose you will not. Your 
Englishmen are so patriarchal .” At this 
juncture one of the patriarchs appeared 
and I went to pack. I do not think he 
has ever ceased racking his brains for 
the meaning of that remark. 

The Sabaroffs stole out of their house 
at dusk. They had kept their ultimate 
destination a secret for fear the servants 
might betray them. Neither the German 
governess nor I knew where they had gone. 
Later I went with the Englishmen to a 
flat which they had placed under the 
protection of the consular seal and a 
notice stating that British subjects only 
were lodged there. We were obliged to 
walk, as all the isvoschiks had disap¬ 
peared. It was dark. The cannon never 
ceased, and rifle shots seemed to be crack¬ 
ing all round us. We turned into the 


172 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Sadovaya, where the firing was louder. 
The machine guns were unpleasantly 
near, but in spite of all this a queue of 
people stood before a brightly illuminated 
building, and I realized that the hour 
for the opening of the cinemas was at 
hand and the youth of Rostov was waiting 
to be amused. Will there always be a 
Nero to fiddle before a burning Rome ? 

Shortly before eight o’clock the roads 
were empty. None of the street lamps 
were burning, but a network of electric 
lights was arranged over the roofs of 
the houses, presumably for some military 
purpose. The trams had ceased to run, 
and all was quiet. For a while the snow 
blew in fierce blizzards and we stood 
watching it until supper was announced 
and the closed shutters hid the desolation 
outside. Conversation was wonderfully 
sustained with scarcely a pause. We 
depended upon one another to keep the 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS ITS 
ball rolling, but anxious eyes and pale 
faces belied the gay outbursts of laughter, 
and we were glad when the meal was over 
and we could sink into chairs and pretend 
to read. At eleven some inspiration drew 
us to the window. We opened the shutter 
and looked out. The snow was falling 
quietly now. Not a soul was abroad. 
A shop-window containing cigarettes and 
stationery was garishly illuminated and 
cast a fanlike glimmer over the white 
road. Suddenly a tank trundled down 
the Sadovaya towards the station. It 
moved like some great prehistoric beast in 
pain, and we watched it lumbering along 
until it was out of sight. Ten minutes 
later an armoured car appeared from the 
opposite direction. This heralded the 
retreat of the Dobrovolchesky Army. 
They came, these poor worn-out officers 
and soldiers, trudging wearily along the 
snow-covered road. They were too far 


174 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
off for us to see their faces, but their 
feet dragged, and some of them fell out 
of line to lean against the wall and rest 
for a few minutes. Many of them were 
suffering from minor wounds, for their 
arms were in slings and their heads 
roughly bandaged. Their overcoats were 
torn, and some, who had lost their fur 
caps, had tied puttees round their ears 
to prevent frost-bite. Not a sound could 
be heard except the distant roar of the 
cannon, which showed that a few Junkers 
had remained behind to prevent the 
retreating army from being followed. No 
one was marching briskly. Every back w r as 
bent and all eyes fixed as it were on some 
distant and unattainable beacon. Those 
who were not carrying guns supported 
men who were almost too worn-out to 
continue. Stretchers were few and far 
between, but sometimes a muffled burden 
was carried past, and occasionally a cart 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 


175 


containing four or five recumbent figures 
glided over the snow. Before the stragglers 
arrived we counted about five hundred 
men. Were there only five hundred 
against that big army of the Red Guards ? 
One man, who came far behind the others, 
stood still at the corner of the street, 
gazing towards the station and looking 
up at the shuttered houses. He stretched 
out his arms a little and then let them 
fall to his sides with a quick gesture of 
renunciation, and after a few minutes 
buried his chin into his high fur collar 
and strode on. I could not see his face, 
but I knew that his eyes were fiercely 
sad. Why had he stood alone when the 
others were so far ahead ? Was it to 
breathe good-bye to Rostov, to the town 
which might have done so much more, or 
to drop a tear for the Cossacks who had 
smiled while all that their forefathers 
had cherished crumbled away ? As he 


170 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
turned the corner a gust of wind blew 
the snow round him, and he vanished in 
a white cloud. 

We drew the curtains and went to bed. 
It was past midnight; the fires in the 
stoves had gone out and the room was 
cold. 

For two hours I slept restlessly, until 
I was awakened by the cannon and a voice 
at my door whispering: “ Get up and 
put something on. They’re signalling 
over the hill.” It was one of the English 
girls who had been unable to sleep, and 
who had wandered round the house trying 
to find some one equally wakeful. We 
stood together at the window. I remember 
how her pretty red hair glowed against 
the white casement and how she nervously 
plaited and unplaited it as we peered into 
the street. From the house opposite a 
Red Cross nurse stole, looked up the road, 
then silently closed the door and walked 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 177 
with quick, firm steps down to the station. 
The cigarette shop was still illuminated. 
Beyond the houses, distant gleams, preced¬ 
ing the noise of the cannon, lit up the 
sky. On the hill some distance away 
flashes came and went. There was a 
sudden glare—a roar—then every light 
was extinguished, and the place was left 
in darkness. The guns ware silent. The 
signals had disappeared. We waited at 
the wdndow. Slowly and imperceptibly 
grey daylight crept along the sky. The 
red-headed girl did not speak. She 
stared into the street, twisting her hair. 
“ Come to bed,” I whispered, taking her 
hand. “It is dawn.” She gave a little 
shiver, then walked across the room, still 
fingering her plait. At the door she 
turned and looked at me, half laughing, 
half crying. “ Poor old Liberty,” she said. 
* * * * * 

At eight o’clock the next morning the 


12 


178 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
town was very quiet. The cannon had 
ceased firing. There were no patrols in 
the roads, and the shops were all closed. 
The bourgeoisie slept behind their shutters, 
but the tovarishchi walked up and down, 
talking eagerly. When the Ataman had 
been in power, the type which was now 
in the street had, for a while, disappeared, 
but now these weary-looking men came 
from their hiding-places, dirty, ragged, 
with sad eyes and coarse lips, walking up 
the middle of the road with their thumbs 
in their armpits, or standing in groups 
laughing and pointing at the banks. The 
maid who prepared our breakfast told us 
that the Bolsheviks were already in posses¬ 
sion of the town, but we did not think 
this was accurate. We knew, from the 
retreat, that Rostov had been abandoned, 
but we had a shrewd suspicion that the 
conquerors would enter in the “ blood and 
thunder ” style of a melodrama. For 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 179 
two hours nothing happened, and gradually 
the streets filled. People timidly peeped 
from their doors, looked up and down, 
then ventured out. We were among them, 
and a party of us strolled into the 
Sadovaya while the others walked towards 
the steppes to see whether the peasants 
had assembled to greet the victorious army. 
The “ simple people,” as Natasha would 
have called them, were talking about the 
bourgeoisie, and several times the names 
“ Sarbaroff ” and “ Popoff ” were mentioned, 
sometimes with a shrug and a sneer 
but generally vindictively. “ They’ll be 
a bit different after this.” “ Wait till 
we own their mills and steamers, and sit 
in their big rooms on velvet chairs.” 
“ Did you hear there would be white 
bread, tovarish ? ” “ Plenty and to 

spare.” We wandered among them, 
listening and taking care not to mention 
the words “ Bolshevik,” “ Cadet,” and 


180 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
“ Junker.” Their chief topic of conversa¬ 
tion was the division of the land, and 
although some of them seemed blood¬ 
thirsty in their aims, the greater number 
appeared to want land, and land only. 

Everything was as normal as possible 
under the circumstances, and so we con¬ 
tinued our walk in the direction of the 
station, hoping to have time to call on 
some friends, and because we were told 
that a machine gun had been set up near 
the University, and we wanted to look 
at this disturber of our rest, which we 
had heard so continuously and never seen. 
A little crowd in the distance did not 
trouble us, and we went down towards 
it. Suddenly it dispersed, and people 
scattered to right and left, as two mounted 
sailors dashed full-tilt up the hill, waving 
revolvers and shooting in the air. Men 
cheered, women screamed and seized their 
children by the arms, the hair, or any 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 181 
part of their anatomy that was nearest; 
young girls dashed into gateways; work¬ 
men pushed one another out of the way ; 
a small boy fell and shrieked with pain 
as some one trod on bis hands. There was 
general panic, and then the machine gun 
began. No one knew its target. People 
pushed and jostled one another, slipping 
on the ice in the gutters as they made 
for the nearest porches, and cursing those 
who hindered their progress. We took 
cover in the house of some Russian friends, 
whom we found sitting with the shutters 
drawn as two bullets had crashed through 
the window. The lady of the house was 
in tears. Her husband had escaped the 
evening before, while the Dobrovolchesky 
Army was in retreat, and she did not 
know whether he was safe. He had 
worked energetically for the Cadet party, 
and now held his life in his hands. 

We remained here for about an hour as 


182 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
the firing continued for some time, and 
the crowd, which was welcoming the 
triumphant Bolsheviks, became rather 
unruly. Later we went home by a side 
route, wandering up alleys and finally 
entering the bank under our flat by a 
backway and creeping up a spiral stair¬ 
case till we reached our own kitchen. 
Two of the younger officers, second 
lieutenants, arrived simultaneously, and 
were greeted with shouts of laughter, for 
they had put old civilian topcoats over 
their uniform and Russian caps on their 
heads. They had driven into Nahitchovan 
to fetch one of the Englishwomen who 
was alone there, and, as officers’ uniforms 
were to the tovarishchi as red rags to 
the bull, they had thought it better to 
take no risks, seeing that every man in 
the crowd was armed. 

Shortly afterwards, the others who had 
ventured out earlier in the morning, and 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVKIS 183 
had made their way towards the steppes, 
returned. They had seen a section of 
the triumphant army enter the town, and 
the excitement had become so intense 
that they were afraid they might be recog¬ 
nized as the “ bourgzhui ” and attacked, 
so they hurried home. They told us how 
the soldiers had marched in singing and 
laughing, and how the men greeted them 
with cheers and shouts, clapping one 
another on the back and slapping their 
thighs. Some of them started that queer 
Russian dance, when they hop in a sort 
of sitting position near to the ground, 
kicking out their legs in front. Thus it 
was with the men, but the women seemed 
to be completely carried away by their 
enthusiasm. They danced wildly, flinging 
their arms above their heads and falling 
about in the snow. They laughed and 
cried, kissed each other, hugged the vic¬ 
torious soldiers, gave and took all sorts 


184 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
of rough and tumble treatment. One old 
toothless creature unwound a yellow 
scarf from her head and, waving it in 
the air, danced and shuffled, shrieking 
“ Hurrah! ” Another was swaying in a 
sort of trance, chanting, “0 Lord God! 
0 my Lord God! let the rich be slain. 
God, God, God!” Her eyes rolled upwards 
and she opened and shut her hands. 
“ By gum,” said one of the American 
Y.M.C.A. workers who had joined us, 
“ I guess they’d all gawn clean daft. I 
got into a blue funk and beat it.” 

Everywhere rich families were being 
mentioned by name, and we wondered 
whether we were in a dangerous position, 
as we were living over a bank in the 
main road, in a flat owned b}^ a well- 
known capitalist. We had, of course, our 
notice on the door signed and sealed 
by the British Consul, but we did not 
think this would prevent intrusion, as 


ENTER THE BOLSHEVIKS 185 
most of the Red Guard were illiterate 
and could neither read nor write. 

After dinner, which we had according 
to the usual South Russian custom at 
three o’clock, we were startled by what 
seemed to be a bombardment at our 
very door. At first we thought that a 
salute was being fired in honour of the 
Bolsheviks, and rushed to the window. 
In the space of a few seconds we realized 
what was happening. The town was being 
bombarded from within. Machine guns 
were being fired, rifle shots rang out. 
Women and children, shrieking, were 
crowded together in doorways, crushing 
one another against the walls. The bodies 
of civilians lay bleeding in the road. We 
went down to the ground floor and sat 
on the stairs. The street fighting must 
have lasted for a couple of hours. The 
noise was deafening, and every now and 
then, when the guns paused, a human 


186 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
voice screamed. We none of us knew the 
reason for this sudden outburst. Perhaps 
some one had been shooting at the patrols, 
or possibly the Red Guard wished to 
terrorize the inhabitants and so keep 
the streets clear. Our porter looked out. 
He told us that dead bodies were lying 
in pools of blood all along the road, and 
that many of the corpses were naked. 
“ They are rounding up the Cadets and 
Junkers,” he said, “and shooting them as 
they find them.” 

All night we heard the revolver shots. 


CHAPTER X 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 
six o’clock the next morning our 



maid stole out of the house. She 


was going to the market to buy bread and 
hoped to escape notice as the day was 
still young. At the corner of the street, 
the naked body of a fair-haired boy lay 
stretched across the curb in the snow. 
She crossed herself and covered it with 
her apron, but the soldiers, who stood 
beside it, laughed. They had sold the 
clothes and boots in the market and were 
counting the notes. Nastia hurried on. 
Near the church two more nude bodies 
lay face downwards. The blood still 
dripped into the gutter. A soldier, passing 
by, jerked his thumb over his shoulder 


188 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


and pointed at them. “ Cadets,” he 
said, and spat. Then a man came with 
a cart, threw the bodies in and drove on. 
At the corner he stopped again, picked 
up the dead boy whom Nastia had 
covered, shouted “Huh!” to his horse, 
and jolted down the street. He was 
driving a cart instead of a sleigh and the 
snow clogged the wheels and made his 
progress slow, but “ My passengers are 
not particular,” he said to Nastia, as she 
turned in at the door. Her story made 
us decide to stay at home, and we settled 
down to await developments. 

At about eleven o’clock a peremptory 
summons at the door disturbed our peace, 
and we let in six soldiers. Each carried 
a rifle and a revolver, and their leader, an 
uncouth lad of about twenty years of 
age, roughly demanded our fire-arms. 
They refused to believe us when we said 
we had none, and searched all over the 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 189 
flat, poking into every corner and looking 
under the beds. They found black bread 
in our larder where they expected to 
see cakes, and their astonishment was 
unbounded. “ But you are the bourg- 
zhui,” they said; “where is your wdiite 
flour ? ” We had none, and said so, 
quickly opening the bins and cupboards. 
We wanted to get them out of the kitchen 
as soon as possible, as their sheepskins 
smelt so strong. Another noise at the 
door drew us into the passage and we 
opened to a second search-party. Its 
chief, this time, was a bright little fellow 
wdio could not have been a day more 
than sixteen. He stumped into the dining¬ 
room, motioning to his men who grouped 
themselves behind him. “ Your fire-arms,” 
he said politely. “ We have none,” 
we answered. He looked at his revolver 
and waved it about in such a casual way 
that we each kept one eye on it all the 


190 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
time he was speaking. “ We are British 
subjects.” “Oh!” he said, “we beg your 
pardon. We have no quarrel with you. 
Tovarishchi, give back anything you 
have taken. Come on.” They clattered 
through the hall and we watched them 
from the stairs. The little leader hitched 
his gun on his shoulder, saluted with the 
charming smile of a happy-go-lucky school¬ 
boy, and disappeared into the street. We 
returned to find the red-headed girl, with 
a little wrinkle in her nose, sprinkling 
eau-de-Cologne on the kitchen floor. 

Later in the morning one of the officers 
returned. He and two others had been 
arrested at their house but liberated by 
the Bolsheviks at head-quarters, and he 
had hurried round to see how we were. 
Unfortunately he had brought a revolver 
with him, and, hearing our story of the 
two search-parties, decided that he had 
better take it out of the house and, if 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 191 
challenged on the way, give it up and get 
a receipt for it as being the possession 
of a British subject. In the meantime 
he put it on his dressing-table. A few 
minutes later, Nastia, who was cleaning 
the room, found it, and, hearing voices 
in the passage, fled with it to the attic, 
where she hid it. As she came down the 
stairs there was a terrific noise outside 
and loud, angry voices demanding an 
entrance. One of us opened the door, 
and as the tovarishchi, followed by two 
civilians, surged in, anger at white heat, 
Nastia whispered: “ Don’t be afraid; 

I’ve hidden the gun in the attic.” The 
tovarishchi shouted at us, shaking their 
revolvers: “ You are accused of shooting 

at the patrols from the top window. Give 
us your fire-arms or we’ll turn the machine 
guns on to the house.” They went up 
the stairs to the attic and we looked 
at one another, horror-stricken. The 


192 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
discovery of that revolver would have 
meant certain death for the men of our 
party, but fortunately the soldiers were 
too drunk to search properly, and they 
came down empty-handed, but vowing 
vengeance. We watched them go out, 
and we sat down and waited for the 
machine gun, filling in the time by playing 
bridge. A loud report brought the game 
to a standstill. Two bullets crashed 
through the window, and we went into 
the passage between thick stone walls. 
“ Polly,” as we had nicknamed the 
machine gun, had never been so lively 
before. She simply stood there and 
tittered at us for about two hours. We 
walked up and down. We talked. We 
had a short concert. Some one began “0 
God, from Whom all blessings flow,” but 
as a bullet punctuated the first line by 
coming through the kitchen window, the 
occasion did not seem appropriate, so 




UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 193 
wo tried “John Brown’s Body.” But 
we could not drown the rattle of the guns, 
and when the noise increased we just sat 
on the floor and waited. The poor old 
cook crouched in a corner moaning, and 
the Colonel walked up and down, rubbing 
his hands and trying to reassure her by 
remarking cheerily: “ This is a damn fine 
country of yours, cookie; damn fine. 
Eh, what ? ” Of course she did not under¬ 
stand a word he said, and I am sure she 
thought us all very hard-hearted, for we 
were helpless with laughter. 

For three days the Bolsheviks brought 
their machine guns into the main street, 
and at four o’clock fired at no special 
target for a couple of hours. They did 
little material damage beyond breaking 
windows and chipping plaster off the walls, 
but as one had nc idea as to what they 
might do next, the whole proceeding was 
very nerve-wearing. Our house was in the 
13 


194 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
Sadovaya, and the position was dangerous, 
so we decided to evacuate and go to 
different friends. Shortly after this the 
British officers left Rostov and we reluc¬ 
tantly bade them good-bye. They had 
been such a comfort to us, and we felt 
that no one else could have looked after 
us so well or treated us with such friend¬ 
liness and courtesy. 

sfc H* sfc & 

As the orators had predicted, the city 
was “ washed with blood.” The Red 
Guard, searching systematically from house 
to house, arrested anyone in whose posses¬ 
sion they found a military uniform, and 
killed any Junker who was hiding. Many 
of these boys pretended to be servants 
in their fathers’ houses, but were denounced 
by the real employees and shot before 
their own doors. Others put on old 
leather coats and sheepskin hats, and 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 195 
disguised as tovarishchi, tried to escape by 
train, but slim fingers and refined features 
betrayed them and they were bayoneted 
before they reached the station. Some hid 
with peasants whom they thought they 
could trust, but were given up when the 
Red Guard passed the cottages. Others 
fled to the cemetery and hid for days 
among the graves, but were driven out 
by hunger. Once a number of friends 
took refuge in a newly built tomb and 
remained there for three days, until one 
went mad and starvation forced another 
into going out and seeing whether he could 
get food. He threw himself on the protec¬ 
tion of the porter’s wife. She comforted 
him with gentle words, giving him soup 
and promising to help him, but when he 
was sitting in the kitchen, resting, she 
brought in the Red Guard, who shot him. 
In the meantime a lady whose daughter 
was buried in the cemetery visited the 


196 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


grave and found the Junkers. She was 
so touched by their misery that she went 
home, disguised herself as a peasant, and 
returned with friends dressed as workmen. 
They brought food and clothes, buried 
the Junkers’ uniforms in the tomb, and 
wished the boys God-speed. Some of 

them escaped, but others were recognized 
and shot. 

Many a young man, weary with hiding 
and driven from pillar to post, gave himself 
up and stood against the wall with head 
erect and shoulders thrown back, as the 
tovarishchi prepared to shoot. “ They 
are fine,” said one of the soldiers, “ I 
hate to kill them ”—but “ They cannot 
fight,” said another. “ They sent an 

armoured train down the other day. 
Twenty of them were in it. Twenty 

against all of us. That’s not fighting. 

They were all killed, but when we came 
up, three nurses, who were there, stood 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE V.)7 
with revolvers in each hand and blazed 
away without stopping. We bombed 
them. Of course we did not want to, 
but—oh, well, that’s not fighting.” Poor 
little Red Cross sisters, standing alone 
with the dead Junkers lying round them 
and firing revolvers until they were 
bombed. Again, “ c’est magnifique mais 
ce n’est pas la guerre.” 

Sad stories were told of young officers 
who, in the absence of a Bolshevik official, 
and weary with waiting for death and 
listening to the insults of the Red Guard, 
themselves gave the order to shoot and 
fell with a swift sigh of relief. Children 
saw their parents killed. Wives begged 
in vain for their husbands’ lives. The 
pathetic tale of a little Cadet made mothers 
realize that even the children were not 
safe. The father of this little boy was 
shot before his son, and when the soldiers 
came up to him the child was trembling 


U>8 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
witli fear. “ You can follow your cursed 
parent,” they said as they took his arm. 
“ Permit me to lie down,” said he, “ I 
am so weak.” So they shot him as he 
lay on the ground. 

Day after day these murders were com¬ 
mitted. People grew almost callous, and 
the little street urchins laughed when 
they heard the shots. Once we were 
greeted by shouts of mirth as we turned 
a corner, and a crowd of small boys 
rushed towards us. “ Oh, barishnie,” they 
laughed, “ they’ve cut off the head of a 
Cadet. It’s lying on the ground, we are 
taring to hit the nose with snowballs.” 
We rarely went out these days unless 
it was absolutely necessary, and then we 
dressed very quietly, and wore shawls 
round our heads like the peasants. Many 
a rich “bourguika,” in disguise, passed us 
and we dared not recognize her, for the 
streets were full of spies and a quick 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 199 
smile or little nod might have done untold 
harm. Students whom we knew, and 
young officers dressed as workmen, looked 
at us casually as though we were complete 
strangers, and we passed them without a 
word, rejoicing one day that they had 
escaped and hearing the next that they 
had been discovered and shot. 

A few notes from my diary will show 
what occurred from day to day:— 

“ Feb. 21th. A- was here to-day. 

She says that early in the morning she 
passed the Palace Hotel, outside which 
there was a large pool of blood. I have 
not been out, but watched from the 
window. The streets are full of tovar- 
ishclii in old sheepskin shoobas and astra¬ 
khan caps. They are all armed—sometimes 
they have a rifle on their backs as well 
as in their hands, and each one has a 
revolver which he carelessly waves about 



200 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
as though it were a little flag. They go 
to the doors of the houses and beat on 
them with the butt ends of their rifles 
till they are opened, when they surge up 
the stairs hunting the Junkers and 
“ requisitioning ” (for purposes of the State, 
so they say) anything to which they 
happen to take a fancy. Some of them 
are wearing swords encased in exquisitely 
chiselled sheaths inlaid with Caucasian 
ironwork. Sometimes they carry them 
in their hands or at their hips, sometimes 
wear them slung across their backs like 
a rifle, but always, unused to such weapons, 
they are incommoded by them, always 
reminded of the booty they have dragged 
from some dead Junker. 

Feb . 28th. The M-’s have suffered 

so much, poor things. I met Mme. M- 

to-day in one of the side streets. She 
was dressed as a servant and she looked 
quickly at me, half afraid, as though she 




UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 201 
thought I might recognize her, but 1 
passed on without a sign. The soldiers 
came into their house, looking for the 
son, but luckily the boy is a general 
favourite among his father’s workmen, 

who have hidden him. Mme. M- 

begged on her knees for her husband’s 
life; but the soldiers pushed her away, 
telling her they detested screaming women. 

When Monsieur M-appeared they laughed 

at him and said they preferred his wealth 
to his life and that shortly he, J c who had 
sipped, drop by drop, the blood of the 
people,” would be a beggar in the street. 
And, indeed, all their property has been 
confiscated. Their daughter, who goes 
about freely without a disguise, tells me 
that they have only enough money to 
last for three weeks. 

March l«s£. It is said that a list of 
volunteers was left in the recruiting offices 
and that the Red Guard now knows the 




202 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
name of every person who helped the 
Dobrovolchesky Army. 

March 2nd . The doctor says the Infir¬ 
mary is a mortuary for slaughtered officers, 
and that some of the bodies have fantastic 
patterns carved upon them, and are minus 
eyes, tongues, and ears. 

March 3rd. Blood, blood, blood. 

March 4 th. Katya’s friend, who went 
into hiding with her brother, was arrested 
with him by the Red Guard. The two 
foolishly tried to go home and are now 
in prison until their father, on whose head 
there is a price, shall voluntarily give 
himself up and take their place. If the 
father does not appear within six days 
the girl and her brother are to be shot. 

March 5th. M- passed through the 

Pushkinskaya Oolitz to-day. He was out 
before breakfast. On the other side of 
the road a student was walking. 44 Ha!” 
cried a tovarish, “ another of the intelli- 



UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 208 
gentsia. So you will educate yourself 
above the people, will you ? There! ” 
And he shot him through the head. The 
boy fell with a little cry, and before he 
was quite dead his clothes were taken off 
and sold to a passing peasant. 

March 6th. The B-’s have had all their 

mills, etc., confiscated and are now without 
resources. They seem to have disappeared. 
A number of soldiers are living in their 
house. 

March 1th . M- was here again. 

He is trying to rescue a Junker girl 
who nursed in the hospital and has been 
imprisoned. I wish he would keep out 
of the streets. He walks about as if 
he had played no part in the great game, 
and if he is recognized he will be shot. 
He went the other day (sheer madness 
on his part) to the station, which he says 
was a perfect shambles! The officers 
were trying to escape by train. They 




204 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
disguise as workmen, but a detachment of 
the Red Guard examines the hands of 
passengers, and anyone who has delicate 
fingers is killed. A lot of these young¬ 
sters are working in the factories simply 
to coarsen their hands.” 

Every day has some such entry, and 
reading it through one wonders how life 
could have been bearable. 

All this time I had no news of the 
Sabaroffs. People who had heard their 
names discussed in the market told me 
that Monsieur Sabaroff was wanted, dead or 
alive, and I imagined that he was no 
longer hiding with his wife and daughter, 
but in a separate place. The telephone 
was working and I rang up Fraulein, 
speaking guardedly, without mentioning 
names. She begged me not to come near 
the house, as a guard had been placed 
round it and she was not allowed to go 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 205 
beyond the garden. She had had a bad 
time. Part of a shell had burst in the 
dining-room, making a large hole in the 
roof, breaking the dormer windows and 
filling the place with dust. Three search- 
parties had been all over the house and 
the soldiers had stolen ornaments. The 
first set had been drunk and had kissed 
and flirted with her till she was speechless 
with fear. They went away without 
troubling her further, but the others who 
arrived shortly after abused her, using 
the coarsest of epithets when they 
addressed her and beating her with their 
rifles because she trembled so much that 
she could not open the doors quickly 
enough. They roared with laughter 
when she showed signs of fear and forced 
her at the point of the bayonet to pre¬ 
pare them a meal, which they devoured, 
pocketing the forks and spoons when they 
had finished. The third party accused 


206 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
her of harbouring Korniloff, and sought 
for him all over the house, spitting on 
the floors and prodding the beds and 
chairs with their bayonets. A number of 
them remained behind to guard the 
house. The servants had stolen the wine 
and spent the night dancing and singing. 
Some of them came to her room and 
told her that she must join them as every 
one was now equal and she was no longer 
a barishnia. 

Mme. Sabarova’s brothers, the Popoffs, 
in whose firm her husband was a partner, 
had escaped, or in any case were nowhere 
to be found. Had they been discovered 
they would certainly have lost their lives, 
for they were sought high and low and 
their name was dragged through the 
gutter by every tovarish. Their mills 
and boats were confiscated and illiterate 
workmen were in charge of their offices. 
The local Soviet wished to find them that 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 207 
they might, at a small salary, give advice 
regarding the business, which no one else 
knew how to conduct. But of course 
they did not appear. Their house was 
ransacked and everything of value stolen. 
The cook, a refined-looking girl, was 
thought to be her mistress in disguise 
and was promptly bound by the soldiers, 
who held pistols at her head and told 
her to give up her husband, if she did 
not wish to see her children torn limb 
from limb. Fortunately her fellow-ser¬ 
vants identified her and told a coherent 
story, so that the Red Guards reluctantly 
unfastened the cords. They tried to 
bribe the other servants with promises 
of jewels to give up their employers, but 
the maids did not know of their where¬ 
abouts, and so the soldiers went out, but 
before leaving the house they cut the 
portraits of Monsieur and Mme. Popoff 
from the frames and took them away. 


208 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
In the meantime the Bolsheviks had 
been drawing up their laws. Their first 
move was to take over all the banks and 
to confiscate the money for the State. 
They gave each bankers’ client a mainte¬ 
nance allowance of a hundred and fifty 
roubles a week, irrespective of the number 
of people whom this man had to support. 
So that a family of two received the same 
as one of seven, unless the latter contained 
two people banking in different places, in 
which case the amount would be doubled, 
a hundred and fifty roubles being drawn 
from each account. The allowance was 
ridiculously inadequate, as prices were 
so high, and many families were on the 
verge of starvation. In addition to this 
difficulty the rich people had to face 
another. Many of them had withdrawn 
vast sums from the banks and buried the 
notes in their gardens, or hidden them on 
their persons, as soon as they realized 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 209 
that Rostov would fall into the hands of 
the Bolsheviks. The bankers’ ledgers 
proved this, and the Soviet taxed the 
bourgeoisie on the grounds that the town 
had resisted and must therefore pay a 
tribute. This tribute was twelve million 
roubles. Each rich inhabitant had to 
pay a sum proportionate to his wealth. 
He could not draw the money from the 
bank but must collect it from his friends 
or produce it somehow. Foreign subjects 
were not immune from this legislation 
and were obliged to pay as much as the 
Russians. The Bolsheviks held that their 
wealth had been amassed in Russia and 
was therefore taxable. This law caused 
great consternation, particularly when 
three bourgeois were arrested and kept as 
hostages. People who had buried very little 
money were at their wits’ end. One old 
lady of seventy-six was unable to pay her 
share and sat for days weeping in prison, 


14 


210 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
whither she had been haled. Her solicitor 
begged that she might remain a prisoner in 
his house, but the request was refused. She 
had plenty of money in the bank and offered 
to pay twice the amount demanded if she 
could but take it from her account. She 
was told that anything she might think she 
possessed, beyond the maintenance allowance 
allotted her, was the property of the State. 
No one could lend her the money and so she 
was arrested. It took a long time to find 
twelve million roubles, and when at last 
about half the sum had come in, it was 
announced that the treasurer had disappeared 
and with him the tribute money ; so they had 
to begin collecting all over again : and those 
who were not obliged to pay were amused. 
At the time five different forms of money 
were in use: the old Nikolievski money 
(pre-war), the Kerensky notes, coupons 
printed after the fall of Kerensky, the Don 
Republic money ordered by Kaledin, and the 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 211 
Don notes issued by the Bolsheviks. The 
people who had jewels hoped to be able to 
sell them, but the safes were commandeered 
by the Bolsheviks, and no one was allowed 
to take anything from the banks excepting 
the maintenance allowance. Those who had 
been prudent enough to hide their jewels 
could not profit by their forethought, as no 
one had money to spare for anything beyond 
the barest necessities. 

The strictest economy was necessary, 
and when a law was passed that servants 
could claim a hundred roubles a month, people 
reduced their staffs, and the registry offices 
were crowded with women who could not 
find work and grew daily more discontented. 
The Menshevik organ “ Rabochy Krai ” was 
suspended for protesting that the Bolsheviks 
were not fulfilling their promises, and that if 
the workmen remained out of employment 
much longer, further dissension would follow. 
It pointed out that bread was scarcer than 


212 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
before. This was true. The day of their 
victory the Bolsheviks promised limitless 
white bread. The next morning this was 
sold in quantities. The following day the 
supply did not meet the demand. After¬ 
wards black bread was sold in its place at 
a high price. Even that was scarce, and one 
day I met a crowd of peasants following a 
man who had a black loaf tucked under his 
arm. “ Tovarish, tovarish, where did you 
get that ? Will you sell half ? No ? 
Well, at least a slice?” 44 What do you 
take me for ? This may be the last I shall 
get for a week.” 

The Bolshevik regime had, for a short 
time, a bad effect upon education. Money 
could not be used for luxuries, and so nearly 
all private tuition, which is popular in Russia 
as a preparation for school examinations, 
came to an end. Lessons in musfc, art, and 
dancing were stopped, for there was nothing 
with which to pay the teachers. Foreign 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 213 
tutors suffered, and one English lady lost 
fifteen pupils in a week. Not only did private 
tuition cease but there was a movement to 
abolish all forms above the fourth, as many 
of the Bolsheviks in office were illiterate and 
could neither read nor write, and they con¬ 
sidered that an education which dealt with 
anything beyond the barest elements of 
learning pandered to the needs of the intelli¬ 
gentsia and brought one man above his 
neighbour. For weeks on end the schools 
closed, because parents were afraid to send 
their children lest they should be mistaken 
for the little Cadets who had helped the 
Junkers or for the sons of officers. Many of 
the masters and elder boys were in hiding; 
and when at last the schools reopened the 
Red Guard stood at the gates and arrested 
or shot the lads whom they suspected of 
having had dealings with the Dobrovolchesky 
Army. 64 What have you done ? 55 cried 
the mother of a little fellow of twelve. She 


214 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
had arrived at the school door just as one 
of the soldiers whipped out a revolver and 
killed her child. “ He never did anything 
against you.” “Oh!” said the soldiers, 
“ you must excuse us. We thought he was 

F-’s son ” ; and they went away, leaving 

the little bleeding body in the road. Man}^ of 
the older gymnasists did not return to school 
and discarded their grey uniform, sometimes 
going about in the black tunics and breeches 
worn by errand boys, so as to avoid being 
recognized. The “ Rabocliy Slov,” a news¬ 
paper which had taken the place of the 
“ Rabochy Krai,” was no longer allowed to 
be published, as it protested in very strong 
language against this murder of little boys 
and of young officers who were scarcely more 
than children. 

Prayers and religious instruction were 
omitted from the school curriculum for, at 
the time, there was a feeling against religion. 
God had been “ above the people,” and was 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 215 
therefore in the same category as the aristo¬ 
crats and must be abolished. Soldiers and 
ruffians who were in the habit of entering 
houses to pillage had hitherto respected the 
jewelled icons, but now they tore them from 
the walls and packed them together with other 
valuables which they had stolen. “ Mother 
of God, Mother of God, help us!” cried one 
of my friends when a search party entered 
her house. “ Be silent,” said a soldier, 
seizing the cross which hung round her neck. 
“ How can there be a mother of God when 
there’s no God? Now we have Liberty”; 
and he lurched over to the icon and laughed. 
Since the patriarch of Moscow had issued a 
proclamation, urging the country to put 
a stop to c4 this fratricidal civil war,” 
and anathematizing the Bolsheviks, the 
priests had become unpopular, and once a 
crowd of men pursued three of them, crying, 
“Krov! Krov!” (blood, blood). But the 
women, still superstitious as regards the power 


21G UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
of these holy men, were afraid, and appealed 
to the Soviet, outside whose gates the crowd 
had gathered. The soldiers were sent to 
protect the priests, who were accompanied 
home, but treated with contempt. After¬ 
wards many of them were afraid to go out of 
doors, and were forbidden to take part in the 
funeral processions, which were pathetically 
frequent, so that one missed these picturesque 
long-haired figures, whose vestments used to 
make such a wonderful splash of colour among 
the mourners of the dead. 

The university suffered because several 
of the students had joined the Dobrovol- 
chesky Army and left the town. One pro¬ 
fessor known to be in favour of the Cadet 
party was killed; another, who had always 
worked for the people and tried to alleviate 
their burdens, was shot simply because he 
was one of the intelligentsia. The students, 
who loved these men dearly, were afraid to 
follow the coffins to the grave lest they, too, 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 217 
should be attacked; but little groups of sailors 
stood outside the church door and on their 
caps they wore white ribbons printed with 
the words : “ Death to the Bourgeoisie.” 

At one time specialization came under the 
Bolshevik ban, and an attempt was made to 
introduce general lectures of a popular order 
instead of those given on the higher branches 
of the different subjects. Nothing, however, 
came of this, and the students working for 
special degrees were left unmolested. 

Another difficulty with which the bour¬ 
geoisie had to contend was the fact that 
their houses were no longer considered their 
personal property. If they owned a house 
which was valued at a certain number of 
roubles, they were obliged to pay rent in 
proportion to its size and position, even 
though they had long ago bought the land 
and the building itself. Not only did they 
have to do this, but they were only allowed 
to keep one room for each member of the 


218 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
family in addition to a sitting-room and 
kitchen. Any extra apartments were re¬ 
quisitioned for the use of people who could 
not find lodgings, or for the Red Guard. 
Efforts were made to billet students and more 
refined families upon the intelligentsia, but 
the local committee had not always time to 
make satisfactory arrangements, and some 
people suffered dreadfully, for occasionally 
as many as fifteen of the Red Guard were 
brought into their houses and lived there, 
choosing the rooms they wished to inhabit 
and wandering about the house as they 
pleased. They had no respect for the furni¬ 
ture, soiled the carpets, tore the curtains, 
and at night brought women from the streets 
into the houses, dancing and drinking till 
dawn so that the inhabitants were sleepless 
with the noise. One lady had three sailors 
and their families billeted upon her. They 
selected her bedroom and a large drawing¬ 
room in which there was a piano, removing 


UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE 219 
her possessions into a small adjoining room. 
“ It will be gay for you,” they said, “ for 
we shall sing and play with our friends in 
the evenings.” They were most affable and 
gave her a cordial invitation to join them. 

Houses which belonged to people who 
had escaped and which were left in the care 
of servants, were requisitioned altogether 
and in many cases completely ruined. The 
Sabaroffs, through a friend who was on good 
terms with the Bolsheviks, managed to pro¬ 
cure a paper granting them freedom from 
such intrusion. It u r as signed by the secretary, 
who had evidently just been taught how to 
write liis name, for the initial letters were 
not written in capitals. One lady told me 
that the paper she received was written in 
German. At the time German was freely 
spoken in the streets, and most of the bour¬ 
geoisie looked upon this as a hopeful sign that 
deliverance w^as at hand. They only wanted 
order, and now that the Brest-Litovsk Peace 


220 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
was signed they did not seem to mind accept¬ 
ing help from their former enemy. If the 
Entente could do nothing for them they 
would welcome the Germans. They preferred 
a foreign power to the Bolsheviks. They 
wanted to be comfortable again. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE. 



ONDITIONS did not improve, and 


\^A people lived their lives from day to 
day making no plans, trying to frget the 
immediate past and not daring to think of 
the future. The Little Russians from Ukraine 
under German leadership were supposed to 
be marching towards Rostov, but the Bol¬ 
shevik papers did not give definite information 
on this point, and though rumours increased 
daily no one could be certain as to whether 
this army were near or not. A clue to the 
situation was given when it became apparent 
that the Bolsheviks were gradually evacuat¬ 
ing. Some people put this down to the unrest 
in Novocherkask, for shortly after the fall 
of Rostov the capital of the Don district 


221 


222 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
had been given up by the Cossacks without a 
struggle. They had not understood the prin¬ 
ciples of Bolshevism and w r ere now r indignant 
that the land of their forefathers was being 
divided, and were openly rebelling. Fighting 
was expected, but as it was now difficult 
for one town to communicate with another 
no one knew’ what was actually happening. 
The trains w r ere irregular and telephoning 
dangerous on account of spies. No one knew 
what to expect, and each fresh rumour pro¬ 
duced but little surprise. People waited 
apathetically. “At any rate it cannot be 
worse,” they said. 

From one point of view', however, it was 
worse. With the gradual evacuation of the 
Bolsheviks, the execution of Junkers and 
other enemies of the Soviet decreased, but 
wholesale robbery and brigandage became 
more frequent. It must be said in justice 
to the Bolsheviks that they tried to establish 
order and did not authorize the pillaging which 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 223 
so terrorized the inhabitants of the town. 
But attached to the Red Guard there was 
a large number of hooligans, who, attracted 
by the wages and the lack of supervision, 
had 44 joined up ” simply for the sake of earn¬ 
ing and of having an opportunity to loot. 
Parties of them used to go into shops and 
annex anything which they happened to 
like. 44 We requisition this in the name of 
the State,” they would say, holding revolvers 
to the heads of the unfortunate salesmen, 
who were afraid to resist. People in private 
houses were treated in the same way, although 
the Bolsheviks shot convicted thieves and 
promised help to anyone who would telephone 
to head-quarters. They failed to realize 
the impossibility of profiting by such aid when 
one was lying on the floor, bound hand and 
foot, or when a brigand was threatening one 
with a revolver. Night attacks in the streets 
were frequent, and the local Soviet attempted 
to cope with the situation by refusing to 


224 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 

allow anyone to be out of doors after nine 
o’clock. One day a body was found at the 
corner of our road with a paper pinned to its 
coat: 44 This person was out after prohibited 
hours.” This law, however, did not prevent 
houses from being attacked, as the brigands 
were always in the uniform of the Red Guard 
and held forged passports, so that those 
responsible for keeping order in the streets 
thought they were members of an official 
search-party and left them unmolested. 

One morning when most of the Bolsheviks 
had retired, leaving their representatives at 
head-quarters, we were awakened at three 
o’clock by the sounds of firing and the 
explosions of bombs. We sat up and blinked 
for a few minutes, then turned over and went 
to sleep. Familiarity breeds contempt. At 
breakfast some one announced dispassion¬ 
ately that the Anarchists were in power. 
The remark elicited no comment. 

In spite of their crimes these Anarchists 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 225 
were rather amusing. They were like children 
playing at brigands with real fire-arms. They 
dashed through the streets in motor-lorries, 
waving their arms and shooting in the air. 
They wore black crape tied round their 
right sleeves, just above the elbow, and black 
ribbons in their caps. As they motored 
at top speed they threw out proclamations 
and white leaflets, which fluttered into the 
gardens, caught in the branches of the trees, 
and were eagerly snatched by the tovarishchi 
walking in the town. These leaflets began 
with the words “ Order above All,” and went 
on to say that the bourgzhui were respon¬ 
sible for the disorder, as they had wealth 
locked in coffers in their cellars, and that if 
these coffers were open to all there would be 
no disorder. They said that liberty was at 
stake. People stood in the streets with 
expressionless faces and watched their mad 
career through the town. 

They broke into houses in the approved 
*5 


226 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
cinema style, bound all the inmates but one 
with cords, and forced the free person at the 
point of the bayonet to give up anything 
of value in the house. Any show of resist¬ 
ance was answered by violence, and people 
were sometimes beaten black and blue with 
the butt end of rifles. They were clever 
at finding the hiding-places of valuables, and 
even pealed off pieces of wall-paper which 
were torn, to see whether rings were concealed 
between the plaster and covering. They had 
a contempt for feminine modesty and thrust 
their hands into the bosoms of women’s 
clothes in case a little bag of money should 
be hidden there. Sometimes they forced 
girls to undress that they might see whether 
jewels were sewn into their corsets. They 
ransacked every room, rummaging among 
paper, shaking books lest rouble notes should 
be placed in the leaves, and even raking over 
the cinders. They took furniture, and it 
became quite a common thing to see motor- 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 227 
lorries driven by armed sailors and filled with 
carpets, bicycles, bedding, and chairs which 
had been stolen. Household linen was much 
in demand, and many people packed their 
best things in cases and hid them in out¬ 
houses or put them in the cellar under the 
coal. One family of girls living with their 
grandmother was attacked by a number of 
brigands, who forced them all to lie on their 
faces on the floor while five men searched the 
house for valuables. The remainder stood 
over the girls with bayonets touching their 
backs so that they dared not move. In the 
interval, the poor old grandmother fainted. 
The brigands were indignant at the want of 
filial feeling shown by the girls, who remained 
lying on their faces. “ How can you stay 
there,” said one, “while the babooshka is 
fainting? Get up and fetch the smelling 
salts and water.” He prodded the nearest 
recumbent figure with his bayonet. The 
smelling salts were fetched. The tovarish 


228 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
revived babooshka, and when she was quite 
restored gently unfastened her earrings and 
brooch. When they had all collected what 
they wanted, he turned to the girls, who were 
still face downwards on the floor and, point¬ 
ing at babooshka who was on the verge of 
another faint, “ Vam ne stidno ? ” (Aren’t 
you ashamed?), he asked. 

At this time the servants could not be 
trusted. Many of them had friends among 
the thieves, and so had no scruples about leav¬ 
ing doors unlocked, and as the Bolsheviks 
had made the employment of watchmen 
unlawful, the houses were not protected. 
People in different parts of the town formed 
house committees, and two members of each 
family were on guard night and day at the 
front and back doors. Every four hours 
they were relieved. By this means the 
household knew who was trying to gain admit¬ 
tance, and let in no one who could not give 
satisfaction as regards his identity. Many 
houses had passwords. 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 229 
Prices continued to be very high, as the 
value of the rouble was so low and transport 
so disorganized that nothing could be brought 
into the town. Material cost at least seventy 
roubles an arsheen, and was very inferior in 
quality. Mending wool and cotton were so 
expensive that servants could not aSord 
to patch their worn-out clothes unless they 
happened to have odd bits of stuff in their 
possession or stole from their employers. 
Ready-made garments were rarely to be 
found in the shops, and people had no idea 
how they were going to dress themselves in 
the summer or following winter. Under¬ 
linen was exorbitant in price and materials 
for making it unprocurable. The lack of 
material and clothes produced an increase in 
highway robbery, and women out at night 
were sometimes stripped of all that they were 
wearing and sent home naked. If the brig¬ 
ands were sympathetically inclined they gave 
their victim a newspaper and called a cab, 


280 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
saying : “ Go home or you will catch cold”; 
but more often they got into the cab them¬ 
selves and left the lady to return as best she 
could. In consequence, people feared to 
venture into unfrequented streets after dark, 
and many hesitated before walking in the 
main road at night. 

Drunkenness increased, and inert masses 
of humanity lolled about the streets. A 
supply of vodka had become available at 
Novocherkask, and women gained money so 
easily that they gave up their usual work and 
confined their attention to profiteering in 
vodka, which they bought for five roubles 
a bottle and sold in Rostov for thirty. 
One taste of spirit produced an insatiable 
thirst, and anything alcoholic was imbibed 
with gusto. A friend of mine, who was 
discovered in his bedroom when the brigands 
entered, was told to get them something to 
drink. He produced a small bottle of liqueur. 
They finished it between them, but complained 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 281 
that it was poor stuff and that they wanted 
something less sweet. They wandered round 
the room and, finding on his dressing-table 
some green liquid in a bottle, consumed it 
with alacrity, smacking their lips and saying, 
44 Ah, that’s good! It burns.” It was my 
friend’s hair-tonic! 

Anti-bourgeois processions were very fre¬ 
quent. They were led by soldiers and the 
rear brought up by armoured cars, and if we 
happened to pass them on a day when an east 
wind had blown away discretion and forced 
us to wear furs, we fled up an alley. The 
people who were marching carried red banners 
printed in white with the words, 44 Smert 
bourgzhui ” (Death to the bourgeoisie), and 
they sang a Russian song of Liberty, set 
to the 44 Marseillaise,” and every now and then 
a soldier raised his gun and shot into the air. 
The sight was picturesque, because all the 
women wore bright scarves round their heads 
and the men had red handkerchiefs tied to 


232 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
their arms, but the general public naturally 
disliked such demonstrations, and when five 
processions took place in one week we grew 
thoroughly ill-tempered with anxiety. Some 
one started the rumour that a “ St. Bartholo¬ 
mew’s Night ” was about to take place. 
Belief in the idea increased daily, and one week 
when the processions had been frequent and 
the articles in the papers particularly blood¬ 
thirsty, many people slept in their clothes 
and hid ladders under the shrubbery in their 
gardens so that they might escape over the 
wall if assassins entered their houses. But 
though we lived in perpetual dread, this 
general massacre was never more than a 
threat. 

The Sabaroffs did not return to their house, 
but remained incognito with friends in another 
part of the town. They went about more 
freely now, although they stayed indoors 
during the St. Batholomew scare. Their 
house was left in the care of the German 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 283 


governess and a porter from one of their 
mills, a fat man whose eyes disappeared when 
he laughed and who was lame in the left leg. 
He professed great devotion to the family, but 
afterwards dug up all the money which the 
Sabaroffs had buried and gave it to his wife. 
We did not discover this till later. He 
and Fraulein were a strange couple. They 
had their meals together in the drawing-room, 
as the dining room had been destroyed by a 
shell, and were waited upon by a Ukranian 
maid called Akulina, the only servant left. 
All the others had been dismissed, but Akulina 
was so stupid that no one feared her. In 
the old days, when we were living at home, 
she was a source of great amusement to 
Natasha and me. She was tall and enor¬ 
mously fat, with very pink cheeks and a wisp 
of flaxen hair. She wore a tight grey blouse, 
too short in the sleeve, so that the cuffs were 
left unfastened in order to accommodate her 
big arms. Her skirt was of black serge, 


284 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


split from the knee to the hip, showing a strip 
of pink flannelette nether garments. Her 
brown stockings were full of holes, and when 
she walked they descended over her ankles, 
so that she usually arrived in one’s room bare¬ 
legged or shuffling along with her fat hands 
firmly grabbing the stockings above the knee. 
We always knew when she was coming as 
she breathed so heavily, and we managed to 
contain our laughter till she was gone. If 
she heard a giggle she used to return and stare 
at us solemnly without uttering a word. 
“ You are so graceful, Akulina,” said Natasha 
one day. She did not answer, but a slow 
grin spread over her face and she shook an 
admonitory forefinger three times with great 
deliberation. At this point the parrot called 
out, “ Dobry viecher, krasavitza” (Good 
evening, my beauty). Akulina looked all 
round the room with her mouth open. “ Ha, 
ha, ha!” said the parrot. She suddenly 
became aware of the bird and stared at it. 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE' 285 
It put its little green head on one side and 
cocked one eye. “ Popachka chaioo hochet” 
(Polly wants some tea), it said. Akulina 
dropped her stockings, crossed herseK 
devoutly, and murmuring, “ The Lord save me 
from devils,” stumped off to the kitchen as 
fast as her fat legs could carry her. She never 
passed that parrot without a sidelong glance 
of fear and a hasty prayer. She believed very 
strongly in devils and shared our fear of the 
Anarchists, who, she maintained, would be 
certain to steal her savings and her stockings, 
of which she was very proud. On this account 
she borrowed a shoe-bag from me and stuffed 
her treasures into it, concealing it in the 
bosom of her dress so that her figure looked 
even more odd than her Maker had intended 
it to be. This gift won for me her affection, 
and she always kissed my hands and tried 
to do little kindnesses for me, until we fell 
out on the subject of my comb, with which I 
found she was in the habit of disen- 


236 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
tangling the fringe of my door-mat every 
morning. 

Akulina’s fear of the Anarchists was by no 
means unwarranted. They did not confine 
their attentions to the upper classes only, 
but robbed people in very poor circum¬ 
stances who happened to be unprotected at the 
moment. A floor-polisher who used to be 
employed by the Sabaroffs was stopped in 
the street and relieved of his watch and a few 
roubles which he had earned. There were 
tears in his eyes when he told me of this. 
It was difficult for him to earn money since 
the eclipse of the bourgeoisie, because few 
people could afford to have floors polished. 
In the old days these men used to visit the 
big houses once a week. They had no brush, 
neither did they crawl on their knees, rubbing 
like a housemaid, but they were barelegged, 
and attached to one foot they had a wooden 
polisher padded with a cloth, and they walked 
up and down pushing this vigorously back- 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 287 


wards, forwards, and sideways with steps 
not unlike those of the Tango. They earned 
very little for this work, so that if they were 
robbed the loss was great. The manicurist 
who used to visit Natasha was also attacked 
one afternoon. She was afterwards found 
in a fainting condition, gagged and bound. 
Not a garment was left in the house, all the 
food had been taken, and the best furniture 
was also missing. As manicuring had become 
a luxury she was not in a position to replace 
what she had lost, and could not go out on a 
cold day because she had no warm coat. 

All this time I had been making inquiries 
at the Consulate regarding the approach of 
the Germans, and when I heard that their 
army was not far off, I was determined to 
leave Rostov. The Consul thought that it 
might be possible to collect a party and to 
arrange for a special train, in spite of the fact 
that the railway was so disorganized. He 
thought that other foreign subjects from 


238 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


different towns in South Russia might pass 
through Rostov, and he promised to let me 
know. 

During their enforced exile I used to visit 
the Sabaroffs daily, taking care not to go into 
the house if there was anyone in the street 
because people knew that I was their “ Angli- 
elianka ” and they did not wish their hiding- 
place discovered. Towards the beginning of 
April they became much more cheerful, as 
the Cossacks in Novocherkask were arming 
against the Bolsheviks and the Germans were 
definitely known to be near Tangarog. 
“ Only think,” said Natasha, “ those Anar¬ 
chists, pigs and gooses that they are, have 
taken our box in the theatre. When the 
Germans come all will be in order.” “ If 
the Germans come I shall have to go away,” 
I said. “ Pooh, Little Spider, what for to 
go away ? The journey will kill you. All 
will be comfortable when the Germans make 
order.” “ Doubtless, but I do not want to 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 239 
meet the Germans. They may keep me here 
for the duration of the war. I think I must 
go, Natasha. You shall visit me in England.” 
“ Then you must marry you and have the 
menage. And, please, Little Spider, you 
are so thin that you must choose a fat hus¬ 
band—but so fat as Akulina, for otherwise 
will your children nevair be proportioned.” 

She wept copiously when I finally said 
good-bye, hugging me in her arms and fasten¬ 
ing a beautiful Caucasian bracelet on to my 
wrist. Her mother shook hands with me. 
“ You leave us without a regret ? ” she asked. 
“ But yes. 1 know. Ah, the cold English! ” 

Cold England seemed very far away when 
I was making preparations for the journey. 
I had tw r o days in which to do everything, 
and sufficient food for three weeks had to be 
bought. The shops were nearly empty, as 
the merchants, fearing the Anarchists would 
steal everything, had hidden most of their 
durable provisions and only showed perishable 


240 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
goods. One other Englishwoman decided 
to leave Russia. She was a charming, blue¬ 
eyed creature with an almost extravagant 
sense of humour, a quality which is indispen¬ 
sable for a refugee. We called her Mamasha 
(little mother), because she had a comfortable 
way of looking after people without worrying 
them. She and I spent two days shopping 
before the refugee train arrived. Prices were 
appalling, and we could get nothing that 
we wanted. Coffee was thirty-six roubles a 
pound and sugar non-existent, but we 
managed to find some good cheese and smoked 
sausage, and we bought numberless eggs for 
hard-boiling. 

The night before our departure we hardly 
slept at all. The Anarchists were bombarding 
a house where some sailors, who had offended 
them, were living, and the noise disturbed 
every one. The next morning we set off with 
as little luggage as possible, driving through 
the back streets towards the station. We 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 241 

avoided the Sadovaya, as we heard occasional 
rifle shots from that direction and feared our 
provisions might be “ requisitioned for the 
State ” if we were seen. Mamasha had black 
circles under her eyes, and I felt cold. We 
looked at each other and laughed in a helpless 
way for no reason. “ We shall never get 
there,” she said. “ Yes, we shall,” I answered, 
without conviction. My heart was in my 
boots. 

We had some difficulty in discovering the 
train as the station was so crowded and it was 
impossible to leave the luggage unguarded. 
Soldiers of the Red Guard stood outside the 
gates and laughed as they pointed out the 
foreign bourguikas running away. Little 
Mamasha, with a bold face but a faint heart, 
valiantly shouldered her packages and 
staggered through the crowd to the 
accompaniment of jeers. I followed with a 
small boy and a dvornik, who took the place 

of porters. After wandering along the lines 
16 


242 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
among numberless wagons and engines, we 
succeeded in finding the refugee train, which 
had such a fixed and stationary look that we 
thought we should never get off. It was 
surrounded by tovarishchi smoking bad 
tobacco, and Armenian beggars sitting with 
babies in their arms on the dusty platforms. 
Old wizened women, clutching baskets and 
puffing at dirty clay pipes, crouched against 
the wall staring at us. None of them spoke, 
and there was something indescribably 
depressing about this silent crowd of sad¬ 
eyed women, who simply looked at us without 
a word. 

The refugee carriage had come from 
Mariupol and contained about thirty people, 
English, Belgian, and French. Mamasha 
and I climbed in and took our seats. We 
remained for twelve hours in the train. Our 
friends and pupils came to say good-bye. 
They wished us “ good luck,” but studiously 
avoided talking of the journey, for they all 


THE ANARCHISTS AND DEPARTURE 248 

thought that we had jumped from the frying 
pan into the fire. The interminable waiting 
exhausted us before we had started, and only 
when we had begun to lose all hope and had 
discovered that the sausage which was to form 
our most staple means of subsistence was 
almost inedible, our carriage was attached to 
the Moscow train and the tovarishchi began 
to climb on to the roofs and storm the other 
compartments. We were protected, as our 
carriage was labelled “ English Mission,” 
and was supposed to be for an official party, 
but in spite of this we shut all the windows 
lest the soldiers should try to invade us. The 
train was both filled and covered. Peasant 
women and soldiers sat on the roofs, clinging 
to the ventilators. Workmen got astride 
the buffers. Boys sat on the steps. They 
shouted and pushed till the whistle blew and 
the train slowly steamed out of the station. 
And the last glimpse I had of Rostov was 
the dusty platform crowded with soldiers 


244 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
and motionless beggar-women, and in the 
midst of them the slim blue-clad figure of 
the red-headed girl, standing and waving her 
handkerchief, while dust-coloured Armenian 
babies tumbled over her feet. 


CHAPTER XII 


FROM ROSTOV TO THE MURMAN COAST 
HOUGH we expected to be at least 



I three weeks on the way, we were very 
much disappointed when the train after 
rolling on for about half an hour, suddenly 
came to a standstill and remained stationary 
for four hours. We prepared a meal, but 
the sausage was unpleasant and the coffee 
tasted of the tin in which it had been boiled. 
Everything was covered with smuts and from 
the far corner of the upper berth two flat 
red insects crawled stealthily over the 
cushions. The linen covering on the seats 
was stained, and the air smelt bad. Mamasha 
looked at me. “ What’s the matter ? ” she 
asked, and her blue eyes twinkled. “ I feel 
so vilely dirty,” I said irritably. “ A wash ? ” 


246 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 

suggested Mamasha tentatively. I went to 
the lavatory, where I made the depressing 
discovery that there was no water on the 
train, and returned, announcing the fact 
gloomily. The Frenchwomen who shared 
the coup6 with us were horrified. They both 
began to talk at once, gesticulating and 
shrugging their shoulders. I heard a ripple 
of laughter from Mamasha’s corner and looked 
at her. She was humming “ We won’t go 
home till morning,” and polishing her face 
with cotton w'ool dipped in eau-de-Cologne. 

After a while the train moved on again, 
and we continued our journey until just 
outside Novoeherkask. Here we pulled up 
with a jerk, and the familiar sound of rifle 
shots greeted our ears. The tovarishchi on 
the roof began to shout, some peasant women 
screamed, the firing redoubled, and we heard 
what was suspiciously like a machine gun. 
Blowing out the candles, we pressed against 
the windows, listening. For some minutes 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 247 
we thought the train had been held up by 
brigands, but we gradually distinguished 
through the gloom the forms of soldiers, 
Red Guards in flight before the Cossacks. 
They were ducking and stumbling through 
underbrush, wet with melting snow, throwing 
down their guns as they ran. Their cries of 
fright, and in many cases of pain, were 
unspeakably harrowing, and we turned away, 
wondering what the daylight held in store for 
us. Later, some of us slept a little, crowded 
together, while others remained in the 
corridors on sentry duty. 

The next morning we found ourselves in 
Novocherkask. “ What has happened ? ” we 
asked the soldiers, and were told that the 
Bolsheviks had fled in all directions. Desul¬ 
tory firing still continued, and the station 
was full of stir and bustle. Cossacks, 
mounted and on foot, were patrolling the 
town. Some were guarding the entrance to 
the station with fixed bayonets; others 


248 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


were marshalling their prisoners. The res¬ 
taurant was crowded with armed men—eating, 
talking, laughing, and singing. Spent 
cartridges were on the ground, bullet-holes 
were in the walls, and some of the windows 
were broken. There was a spurious air of 
gaiety, but all the time one felt the under¬ 
current of anxiety forcing and forcing itself 
upwards. What of the morrow ? Triumph 
for the Cossacks used not to be short-lived. 
But now ? Well, they had thrown away 
what their forefathers had held as sacred; 
they had betrayed their town to the enemj^, 
and, even though they had now retaken it, 
the knowledge of their loss was still bitter, 
and the hope to regain all that they had 
spurned but faint. 

We wished to continue our journey, but 
as the lines had been cut both between 
Novoclierkask and Rostov and between 
Novorcherkask and Voronej, we could neither 
go forward nor back. More fighting was 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 249 
expected round the station, and further 
delay was necessary, as the Cossacks were 
now in power, and official permission to 
leave the town had to be obtained from them. 
The ladies of the party were offered hospi¬ 
tality by some Cossack families while the men 
remained in the train, guarding the carriages. 

Fighting continued for three days in the 
village behind Novocherkask ; and Guluboff, 
who had in the March campaign persuaded 
the Cossacks to surrender to the Bolsheviks, 
was dead, killed by his own men. Cossack 
officers, imprisoned and under sentence of 
death, were liberated; but the rejoicing 
was subdued, for rumour was busy, and it 
was generally thought that reinforcements 
were arriving for the Bolsheviks from Rostov. 
One night the firing seemed nearer, and three 
bombs exploded in the town. The next day 
all was very quiet. A sort of hopeless resigna¬ 
tion was stamped on every face, and it was 
whispered that the Cossacks had no ammuni- 


250 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
tion. From the big houses forlorn figures, 
no longer in uniform but disguised as peasants, 
crept out, with knapsacks of food on their 
backs and with eyes looking wearily across 
the steppes. Cossack officers and Cadets, 
after their three days’ triumph, were going 
into hiding. That night we helped the family 
with whom we were staying to bury jewels 
and silver in flower-pots, to hide military 
buttons and epaulettes, and to destroy all 
traces of the Colonel, who had escaped earlier 
in the day. We slept without undressing, 
ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. 

At 7.30 the next morning we were 
startled by a banging at the door and the 
all too familiar summons, “ Open to the Red 
Guard.” We let in a party of ten soldiers, 
who advanced, each with a gun in one hand 
and a revolver in the other. On such occa¬ 
sions they were always so cumbered with arms 
that one almost mechanically looked for 
swords at their hips and daggers in their 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 251 
boots. We intimated that we were foreign 
subjects, and they apologized and withdrew 
without even asking any leading questions. 
Delighted to have brought some measure of 
safety to the household which had shown us 
so much hospitality, we sat down to break¬ 
fast. Hardly had we begun when there was 
another onslaught on the door. This time 
our visitors were drunk. They began by 
eating our breakfast and pocketing our apples. 
They refused to look at our passports. They 
pushed and jostled us, demanded money, 
and shook their revolvers in our faces. The 
crippled brother of the Colonel, who owned 
the house, stood by his sister’s chair, pale but 
perfectly self-possessed. She sat with a little 
piece of paper in her hand, mechanically 
tearing it into strips, her eyes fixed upon the 
ground. And all the time the soldiers stood 
over her, demanding the master of the house 
and threatening her with death. To each 
question the cripple replied, “ She knows 


252 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


nothing.” One of the tovarishchi sat at 
the desk, his sheepskin hat at the back of his 
head, his legs wide apart, the heels on the 
ground and the toes sticking up, rummaging 
and tearing papers he could not read and 
cursing because he found no money. 

During this scene we received a telephone 
message that our train would leave the station 
within an hour. It caused us infinite pain 
to abandon this unfortunate family, but we 
could follow no other course. “ Tovarish,” 
I said to one of the soldiers, 64 1 must go out 
and get a cab.” He had his head almost on 
my shoulder, and was trying to make love 
to me. “You can do what you like, little 
pigeon,” he replied affectionately, and I ran 
to the door. When once outside, however, 
it was not so easy for me to do as I liked. 
There were soldiers on the pavement and 
they surrounded me. “ What do you mean 
by coming out of the house ? We shall kill 
you. Show your papers.” They advanced 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 258 
upon me with their bayonets. “ Now look 
here, little doves,” I said as boldly as I could, 
“you can’t go killing British subjects like 
that. It’s not done.” They looked quite 
unconvinced. “ I am rather important,” I 
said loftily. “ There will be a row with the 
British Government if I do not arrive home 
safely.” They seemed impressed. “ Let 
the barishnia go,” said one, and so I escaped 
to find my cab. After a vain search I returned 
to the house, where a number of soldiers were 
standing round the door refusing to allow 
anyone to proceed to the station. Argument 
was useless, and if it had not been for a 
Danish doctor, one of our fellow-travellers, 
who knew Russian sufficiently well to bluff, 
we should never have reached the train in 
safety. Most of the soldiers were drunk and 
their tempers had begun to get nasty. 

The station was filled with members of the 
Red Guard, and there were traces of blood 
in the sand. Three Bolshevik nurses wan- 


254 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
dered arm in arm along the platform flirting 
with the sentries. They were dirty and they 
did not wear uniform, but had red cross 
handkerchiefs tied round their sleeves. They 
were girls of the peasant class, and their 
appearance was unhygienic in the extreme. 
I was glad to get away from them into the 
train. Here the men who had remained on 
guard told us that the scene had been appal¬ 
ling. The Red Guards and their camp 
followers, dancing among the dead bodies 
of the Cossacks, had sung and drunk the 
whole night, and in the morning they had 
shot the Ataman. 

Our train was as we had left it except that 
one window had been broken. We got into 
our carriage, hoping to leave the stricken city 
within a few minutes, but we were bitterly 
disappointed. For an hour we waited, listen¬ 
ing to the shooting, which was not far off, 
as a battle was in progress in a village just 
behind Novocherkask. Later we were 


FROM ROSTOV TO MTJRMAN COAST 255 

shunted near a little wooden shed, and an 
armoured train drew up beside us. There 
was a slight pause. Then a machine gun 
sounded close at hand, a six-inch cannon 
boomed, and the Bolsheviks began their 
bombardment. The noise was terrific, and had 
we wished to speak we could not have heard 
one another. But we were silent. Each of us 
knew that if the Cossacks replied we should 
be blown to bits. The Cossacks, however, 
had no ammunition, and they fired only once, 
putting the armoured train out of action. 
For seven hours the Bolsheviks shelled 
the hamlets; for seven hours we heard 
the roar of the big cannon and the maddening 
titter of the machine gun, laughing at us from 
the background ; for seven hours we watched 
the village burn. Darkness fell, and we could 
not light our candles. The glass from the 
shed window smashed round us. Suddenly 
there was a shriek near at hand, followed by 
a sound like the howling of a mob. One of 


256 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
the French girls in our carriage cried, “ They 
are coming,” and fainted. We had to grope 
for her in the darkness, chafe her hands and 
give her brandy—and in the midst of all this 
turmoil the guns ceased firing, and the train 
slowly jerked its way out of the station. 
Shortly afterwards the shelling began again, 
and for a long while we could see the fires in 
the villages. 

We travelled for several hours without 
stopping, still hoping we should reach Veronej 
before the Germans; but at this time the 
Russian railway system was so disorganized 
that w r e were continually halting at w^avside 
stations, sometimes for six hours at a stretch. 
At one little place a Polish officer—y r oung, 
w'ell-built, in uniform but without his epau¬ 
lettes got out of his carriage to exercise. 
He was promptly surrounded by tovarishchi, 
who insisted that he was a Cadet escaping 
from Novocherkask. This was denied by 
those in the train with him, but they were not 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 257 
believed. Proudly erect, but with white 
lips, he showed his papers, while the soldiers 
shook their fists in his face and shouted at 
him. He w’as eventually allowed to return 
to his seat, but the scene left an unpleasant 
impression and we were ill at ease. 

We passed through uninteresting steppe 
country, where hardly a field was ploughed 
and where no grain was being sown, with 
perpetual delays so wearisome in their fre¬ 
quency that we were obliged to organize team 
races along the lines. Indeed, the train 
travelled so slowly and stopped so often 
that a peasant, who at one point had fallen 
off the roof, was loudly cheered two stations 
further along when he sauntered up and took 
his place. Wild dashes for kipitok (boiled 
water) also did much to relieve the monotony. 
In Russia, at every station there is a wooden 
hut where boiling water can be drawn, for 
the Russian cannot do without his tea and 
travels everywhere with a kettle. As there 

17 


258 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
was no water on the train, we filled every 
available vessel, and it was amusing to see 
men and women in all stages of dress and 
undress (sometimes w r e had to turn out at 
five o’clock in the morning) rushing with 
kettles, teapots, bottles, tin mugs—in fact, 
any sort of utensil that did not leak too 
badly—to get a place in the kipitok queue. 
Afterwards acrobatic feats were performed 
in the wa}^ of bathing in saucepans, and the 
morning greeting always took the form of 
“ Hallo ! have you washed ? ” Later, when 
we were sleeping on planks, it was “ Hallo ! 
how are your bones ? ” but that, as Mr. 
Kipling says, is another story. 

Beyond Liski we continued to travel for 
twenty minutes at a stretch and to be sta¬ 
tionary for about three hours, waiting for 
other trains which always arrived very much 
after they were expected and which were 
crowded both inside and out. At one stop- 
ping-place some of our party were greeted 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 259 
by a friend whom they all but failed to recog¬ 
nize. It was Prince T-, whose estates had 

been confiscated and who was journeying 
south, disguised as a tovarish. He made an 
excellent hooligan with his old sheepskin 
coat, unshaved face, and dirty?' hands, and 
he seemed quite cheerful though he was 
travelling under difficult conditions in a 
cattle wagon, herded with peasant men 
and women, packed like herrings in a box. 

Up to the present we had been able to get 
a certain amount of bread and any quantity 
of milk at the wayside stations. A little 
butter could sometimes be found, and occa¬ 
sionally peasant girls brought baskets of hard- 
boiled eggs. Milk was fairly cheap, but bread 
was usually about seven roubles a small 
loaf, and the further north we journeyed the 
scarcer it became, until, at Goludveena, starv¬ 
ing children ran along the platform, holding 
up their hands to the passengers and begging 
for crusts. 


260 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


On the twelfth evening we reached Moscow, 
where we remained for three days and .revelled 
in hot baths. Most of us slept on the train, as 
accommodation in the town was both difficult 
to find and expensive, exclusive of meals, which 
cost a small fortune. We could buy no bread 
at all and so had to economize with what we 
had, which was black and composed of bits 
of straw and sand, in addition to rye flour so 
badly baked that it was glutinous and unpalat¬ 
able. When we had concluded all arrange¬ 
ments with the Consul and had obtained per¬ 
mission from the Bolsheviks to leave the 
country, our carriage was attached to several 
others hired by the French and filled with 
officers and soldiers and a few civilian refugees 
who had come from different parts of Russia. 
From them we received the utmost considera¬ 
tion and were treated all the way with great 
courtesy. They fed us with sardines and 
biscuits and occasional tins of “ singe,” 
the poilus* term for “ bully-beef,” which were 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 261 

very welcome after our everlasting though 
not over-fresh sausage. 

As the only dangers would now be due to 
natural causes or to the state of the Moscow 
to Murman railway, which is built over a 
frozen marsh and which sinks in the spring 
when the snow melts, and as there was no 
longer any fear of our being cut off by the 
Germans, we became wildly hilarious. We 
gave nightly concerts. We nicknamed the 
compartments according to the characteristics 
of the inmates. There was the “ Consulate,” 
where all the officials were lodged; the 
“ Nursery ” where children and flappers 
indulged in an orgy of sugarless tea-drinking ; 
the “ Harem,” where French and English 
women were so closely packed that the corridor 
was often used as an annexe, and where the 
washing, hanging on slack boards, flapped 
in the faces of unwary visitors; the “Kitchen,” 
where the perpetual odour of onions, acquired 
by bribery and corruption, permeated even 


2&2 UNDER COSSACK .AND BOLSHEVIK 
the suit-eases stacked at the end of the 
passage. 

The further north we went the colder it 
grew, and at every stopping-place we got out 
and ran races or danced to keep our blood in 
motion. The Fins and the Laps did not seem 
to approve of us, and treated us with surly 
indifference when we asked for boiling water. 
We stopped for a whole day at Vologda, where 
peasants sold us hand-made lace, and at 
Petrozavodsk, and then journeyed fairly 
steadily up to Kandalaksha, where we met a 
number of our own Tommies and Marines. 
They greeted us with cheers, and some of 
them came and had tea and sang to us. 

Two days later we had to disembark at 
midnight, as a bridge was broken and our 
train could not pass. Heavily laden with 
suit-cases, we staggered up hill and down 
dale, tobogganing on cabin trunks when we 
came to a slope. Mamasha, who had sprained 
her ankle earlier in the week by dancing a 


FROM ROSTOV TO MURMAN COAST 263 
jig to warm her frozen feet, hobbled in the 
rear, supported on either side by two of her 
adopted daughters. It was difficult to get 
her across the ice, and she stood at the edge 
patlieticalty waving a crutch, which she had 
borrowed from a wounded Belgian, and sing¬ 
ing in a mournful key, 44 Oh, why did I leave 
my little back room in Blooms-bur-ee ? ” 
44 Why did we leave Moscow?” I groaned, 
thinking of the warm room in the hotel, 
44 to come on this wild jaunt.” A tall blue- 
clad French officer came to our rescue. He 
was a great friend of ours, and we had nick¬ 
named him “ Prince Charming,” because he 
was always so intensely wideawake when every 
one else was sleepy. When I was bored 
I used to seek him out and quarrel with him. 
He responded beautifully. At the moment 
he was still suffering from the severe defeat 
in an argument which we had had earlier in 
the day. He gave Mamasha his arm and 
ignored me. 44 Moscow,” he said, to no one 


204 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
in particular, “ is for ze military and not 
for ze bad leetle girls ” ; and Mamasha, 
limping painfully, laughed at me over her 
shoulder. 


CHAPTER XIII 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 
HE train on the other side of the bridge 



I was composed of fourth-class carriages 
in an unspeakable condition of dirt and air¬ 
lessness, without water or sanitary arrange¬ 
ments of any description. It was tenanted by 
bugs, which we called the “Red Guard” on 
account of their colour and their frequent 
attacks in massed formation. They kept us 
awake, and we wrote verses about them, 
studies in entomology, the chorus of which 
ran thus:— 

“ At night when we wished to be sleeping 
The little Red Guard came creeping. 

We saw them here and we saw them there, 

We watched them stroll through our neighbour’s * 
hair, 

And we dozed to the tune of their cheeping.” 


266 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


Mamasha declared that she had a tame one. 

The seats in our carriage were wooden and 
so crowded that some of us were obliged to 
remain standing up all night. Before starting 
we had to collect wood for the stoves and make 
some attempt to sweep out the carriage. 
The latter we abandoned after a few minutes, 
as by cleaning we destroyed the dug-outs 
of the insects and roused them to a counter¬ 
offensive of a particularly irritating nature. 
We were, by this time, dreadfully tired, but 
owing to the condition of the wagon and 
the lack of space we could not sleep, and so 
sat huddled together, wide-eyed and a little 
cross, looking out of the window at the grey 
sky, lonely snow-covered hills, and distant 
water. The Land of the Midnight Sun has 
a romantic title, but a desolate appearance. 
We passed through Kola and travelled 
steadily till we reached Murmansk the follow¬ 
ing midnight. We had, of course, expected a 
little town something like Archangel and were 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 207 
utterly taken aback at what we saw. Miles 
of desolate land stretched before us. Hills 
with bare trees surrounded the port. At 
intervals wooden huts were scattered, and 
higher up we saw what appeared to be long 
cattle-sheds, but which we afterwards learned 
to call the “ baraks,” houses divided into 
cubicles where refugees, waiting for the boat, 
were living. Several trains, which appeared 
to be tenanted all the year round, were stand¬ 
ing on the lines, and the ground was covered 
with snow. There were no shops of any kind, 
and far up on the hill we saw a tiny graveyard 
filled with unpainted wooden crosses. 

After passports and particulars had been 
collected we were housed in the train for four 
days; then some moved to the “ Wagon- 
Lit,” others to the “ Consulate,” and to the 
remainder Barak No. 25 was allotted. The 
latter almost defies description. It was a 1ow t 
wooden building, with double windows tightly 
sealed and made so as not to open. There 


268 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
was a door on either side, and two stoves in 
the middle, where no light penetrated. The 
shed, which was arranged to hold a hundred 
and sixty people, was built like a church with 
three aisles, divided on each side into small 
horse-boxes, roofed in such a way that, at a 
pinch, people could sleep above as well as 
inside them. Each horse-box was provided 
with a shelf and two planks to be used as beds. 
They were not wholly divided one from 
another, so that privacy could only be insured 
by hanging up rugs or coats. On our arrival 
we discovered the place empty, but so appal¬ 
lingly dirty that we could, at first, only clean 
it with a spade. It had been occupied before 
us by Russian workmen, who had left old 
sheepskins and tins, etc., everywhere. The 
odour was nauseating, and when we found 
the windows would not open, we threw a 
saucepan through the one opposite our box 
and so dislodged a pane and kept a permanent 
supply of fresh air. Insects here were even 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 269 
more abundant than in the train, but fortu¬ 
nately we had plenty of Keating’s powder, 
and, by dint of washing three times a day in 
a solution of corrosive sublimate, we managed 
to keep clean. On the first day we had a 
little difficulty, as the tovarishchi returned 
and wanted to oust us. Afterwards, when 
they found that we did not wish to move, 
they suggested occupying the middle aisle 
while we kept to the side ones. We, knowing 
the ways of the tovarishchi, were unwilling, 
and matters looked very unpleasant until the 
authorities came to some amicable arrange¬ 
ment and we were left in peace. 

For four days we lived quietly, scrubbing, 
scouring, cooking, chopping our own wood 
and drawing our own water, and then quite 
unexpectedly we were invaded by a train¬ 
load of two hundred and seven French and 
Belgian working-class people. We had them 
above us, behind us, and on either side of us. 
They spent their time in doing the family 


270 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
washing, filling the aisles with flapping wet 
linen, scolding screaming children, trying 
to shut our window, over which we mounted 
guard, and hammering, hammering all day 
and nearly all night. They rarely seemed 
to clean out their cubicles, and certainly they 
never took the children for walks. It was 
of course difficult to exercise, as there was 
only one good road. The rest of the ground 
was underbrush and bog, and so the children 
either played round the baraks, near the moats 
where dirty water was poured, or close to 
the garbage boxes, which, in spite of the cold 
weather, smelt so unpleasant that we drew 
shawls over our faces when we passed them. 
Of course illness broke out. The window we 
had smashed was the only means of ventilat¬ 
ing the building, which lodged two hundred 
and fifteen people. The air grew daily more 
vitiated and an officer, who wanted to come 
and see us, drew back when he reached the 
door, saying: “ Good Lord, it’s worse than 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 


271 


a gas attack!” Small-pox started, and we 
were vaccinated one after another with a 
pen by a doctor who sat on a table, who 
smoked, and who scorned the use of disin¬ 
fectants. We had no quinine, and when 
Spanish influenza declared itself we lay, 
racked with pain and parched with fever, 
upon our wooden planks. Some children 
developed chicken-pox, and an epidemic of 
measles followed. One little girl had mumps. 
Two old people died of pleuro-pneumonia 
and a child of typhoid, and opposite our 
window men worked, nailing together the 
sides of wooden coffins. Mamasha suffered 
acutely from malaria, and every day at five 
o’clock was prostrated with a temperature 
of a hundred. But she was always smiling, 
and even when her head was aching with fever 
she scrubbed floors with disinfectant and 
helped with the heavy washing, which we had 
to do ourselves. The family who slept above 
us were the only people who managed to upset 


272 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


her. This family consisted of five persons: 
a weary old grandfather, an exceedingly 
dirty mother who dropped sardine oil on the 
floor and who cleaned her children’s heads 
just over our box, a father with sores all over 
his face, an imbecile girl of six, and a baby 
boy of three, covered with vermin. The small 
boy, Robert (pronounced Robair) by name, 
was curiously fascinated by our rugs, and when 
his parents were not looking sidled up, rubbing 
his dirty little head against them till we were 
nearly frantic. We could face Bolsheviks 
and Anarchists—bombardments left us cold— 
but lice were more than we could bear. 
4 4 Look at him,” cried Mamasha as Robert 
arrived, scratching. I shook some Keating’s 
on to the floor and chanted:— 

“ Robert, Robert, 

Now is it fair 

When you have very little hair 
And we have lots 
That gets in knots, 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 


273 


To give us fits 
By dropping nits 
And other bugs 
Upon our rugs ? 

You think it nice 
To play with lice. 

You chase with glee 
The sportive flea-” 

66 Finish it, Mamasha.” But Mamasha was 
beyond verse-making. With the air of a 
cat stalking a mouse she was stealthily 
creeping towards the wall, a small piece of 
tissue paper clasped between the finger and 
thumb of her outstretched hand. She made 
a sudden pounce. “ Got him ! 55 she cried 
triumphantly. 

Our nights were even more disturbed than 
our days. All the grown-up people seemed 
to have coughs, and the children, unused to 
perpetual daylight and bitten by insects, 
could not sleep, and cried until early morning. 
Sometimes an energetic materfamilias, unable 
18 


274 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
to rest, got up and did the family washing, 
letting the water drip through the boards 
which formed her floor and another party’s 
ceiling, thereby causing a quarrel, during 
which obscene language was freely used and 
other people, awakened by the noise, uttered 
shrill rebukes until the whole barak was 
disturbed. Our bodies ached, and when we 
did manage to snatch a little sleep we were 
restless, as lack of nourishing food had made 
us so thin that lying on planks was painful. 
We were fed as well as it was possible when 
all provisions were imported, and the French 
authorities daily gave out rations of bully- 
beef, ships’ biscuits, sardines, and tea. Tinned 
milk was supplied to children and invalids. 
Bread was scarce, but French biscuits dipped 
in water made quite a good substitute. Each 
barak had a kitchen attached to it, and the 
women took it in turns to cook hot soup made 
of beans, bully-beef, and any oddment which 
could be spared. We waited in queues at 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 275 
twelve o’clock, each holding some sort of a 
vessel, and the soup was ladled out of large 
bins. We carried it back to our horse-boxes 
and supplemented it with sardines or any 
other tinned food which we happened to have. 
It was a detestable concoction, but as it was 
the only hot meal we could have we drank 
it without complaining. Mamasha and I 
had tin mugs, in which we ate all manner of 
food-stuffs, so that our soup acquired after 
a time a curious flavour. 

Fatigue parties were also organized for 
chopping wood and drawing water, and in this 
way the fires were kept alight all day and 
boiling water could be obtained at any time 
between eight and six. This was a great 
advantage as we could hang rugs in front of 
our box and, by lavish use of hot water and 
carbolic soap, keep fairly clean. “ Is Miss 
Power here ? ” I once heard. Mamaslia’s 
apologetic reply followed : “ I’m so sorry, 

she’s having a bath.” “ Really, is there a 


27G UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 


bath-room here ? ” “ Oh, no, but ” (proudly) 

“ we have two cups and an earthenware 
jar.” 

We soon became lost to all sense of modesty, 
and I shall never forget the horrified expres¬ 
sion of a little Yorkshire man, who had 
travelled with us and who looked one day 
into our box as he was shaving and whispered 
hoarsely : “ For Gawd’s sake, gurrls, doan’t 
put yer ’eds out; there’s a walrus a-washin’ 
of ’isself in the passage ”—and we heard the 
fat French peasant, our neighbour, breathing 
heavily as he performed his ablutions where 
there was more room for him to move. 

We did not lack entertainments, but we 
rarely felt well enough to attend them. 
Concerts were given in the different baraks, 
moving pictures shown in two sheds which 
were arranged as cinemas, and on Sunday 
the American Y.M.C.A. chaplain held an 
informal church service at the British Con¬ 
sulate, where a curly-headed boy played hymns 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 277 
on the mandoline, asking the preacher, when 
he could not remember the tune, 44 Say, sir, 
d’you mind humming that ? Guess I’ve 
forgotten how it goes.” 

Peasants and Chinese labourers wandered 
through the baraks daily, offering extra¬ 
ordinarily large sums of money for second¬ 
hand clothing, pots and pans, and crockery. 
44 We have nothing,” they said, 44 and you 
go to a country where everything is cheap.” 
Most of them possessed only the clothes they 
were wearing, and, as they could not buy 
anything in Murmansk, were delighted to 
spend what money they had on garments 
which were still serviceable though old- 
fashioned. 

Our boat eventually arrived, but remained 
in harbour for a month, while the carpenters 
were busy putting up extra berths and 
hammocks. It was delightfully camou¬ 
flaged, and we used to go down to the quay 
and look at it longingly, but only when the 


278 UNDER COSSACK AND BOLSHEVIK 
British transport office was burnt down were 
we hustled away by the authorities, who 
feared trouble. And so, carrying our luggage 
on stretchers, we waved a glad good-bye to 
Murmansk. We were a cosmopolitan set— 
French, Belgians, Serbs, Poles, Russians, and 
English, and the ship was German, a Portu¬ 
guese prize with a British crew, chartered by 
the French Government for Belgian refugees. 
We were on board seventeen days, sometimes 
moving, sometimes stationary, two thousand 
of us in a ship provisioned for eight hundred. 
Illness, infectious and otherwise, increased 
daily, and the doctor was distracted by sym¬ 
ptoms described in every foreign language but 
his native English. In the danger zone we 
were never without our life-belts, and once 
we heard a depth-charge, which showed that 
a submarine was at hand. 

At last we arrived, so dirty, weary, and 
infectious, so worn-out with a journey that 
had covered a period of three months, that 


REFUGEES IN MURMANSK 279 
we could hardly realize it was summer and 
we were in England. “ We can disembark! 
hurrah ! ” cried Mamasha. She seized her 
suit-case and rushed upstairs. Suddenly she 
gripped my arm and stared skywards. I 
followed her gaze, and we sat down on the 
deck in despair, for there, floating from the 
mast, a yellow patch among the white clouds, 
was the quarantine flag. 


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